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U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday met with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov "for an update on Ukraine's military, diplomatic, and humanitarian situation," according to the White House.
Biden dropped in on a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their Ukrainian counterparts, Kuleba and Reznikov, during his visit to Poland.
They discussed "further efforts to help Ukraine defend its territory" and the United States and its allies' ongoing actions towards Russia, the White House said in statement.
In a tweet, Kuleba said that the meeting allowed him to seek "practical decisions in both political and defense spheres in order to fortify Ukraine's ability to fight back," while Reznikov tweeted that he left the meeting with "cautious optimism."
Biden's trip to Poland came after appearances at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, a G7 gathering and a summit of the European Council – three intensive meetings in two days dominated by the Ukraine crisis.
The NATO summit concluded Thursday with no agreement on imposing additional sanctions against Moscow, including on the country's oil and gas products. No consensus was found on the issue at European Council summit either.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said during an interview with German media on Saturday that Kyiv insists on a system of security guarantees for Ukraine as one of the key elements of negotiations with Russia, adding that such a system "is impossible without the participation of the United States in the first place."
Ukrainian and Russian delegations have held three rounds of in-person peace talks in Belarus since February 28, and a fourth took place on March 14 via video conference.
The Russian military said on Friday that the main tasks of the first stage of Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine have been completed in general.
Over 3.7 million refugees have fled Ukraine to other countries since Russia launched its "special military operation" on February 24, the latest UN data showed on Saturday.
(CGTN)
