White House National Security adviser: US seeks to weaken and isolate Russia

The United States says it ultimately wants to see an “independent Ukraine” and “a weakened and isolated Russia,” ratcheting up Washington’s offensive against Moscow over the military campaign in Ukraine.

White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked on Sunday if the Biden administration is going to do whatever it takes to ensure that Ukraine wins its war against Russia.

“Our policy is unequivocal that we will do whatever we can to help Ukraine succeed. And it will be … President Zelensky and the democratically elected government of Ukraine that determines what that success constitutes,” said Sullivan.

“But at the end of the day, what we want to see is a free and independent Ukraine, a weakened and isolated Russia, and a stronger, more unified, more determined West,” he added. “We believe that all three of those objectives are in sight, can be accomplished.”

Thousands of Ukrainians have fled eastern Ukraine as officials in Kiev say they are preparing for “big battles” against the Russian forces there.

“Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine must win them, including in the Donbass. And once that happens, Ukraine will have a more powerful negotiating position,” Zelenskyy’s adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on national television, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Evacuations resumed on Saturday from Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, where a missile strike killed 52 people at a railway station a day earlier, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest Western leader to visit Kiev.

Sullivan warned of the possibility of more hardships for Ukraine, noting the appointment of a new Russian general, known for carrying out brutal attacks, to lead the war.

“We’ve seen scorched-earth warfare already, we’ve seen atrocities and war crimes, and mass killings and horrifying and shocking images from towns like Bucha and the rocket attack at Kramatorsk,” he said.

Sullivan: No trips to Kiev planned for Biden

Sullivan on Sunday also said President Joe Biden currently has no plans of traveling to Kiev but he looks forward to going back to the city he has visited in the past.

On Saturday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital to meet with its President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Sullivan was asked whether Biden planned on following Johnson’s lead and also travel to Kiev.

“President Biden doesn’t currently have any plans to travel to Kyiv. But what I will tell you is he sits in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room on a daily basis, organizing and coordinating the world when it comes to the delivery of weapons,” Sullivan said.

“President Biden has been to Kiev before. He looks forward to going to Kiev again. But we’re not currently planning a trip,” he added.

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova confirmed on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange on Saturday. Ukraine also announced that it carried out the “third exchange” of prisoners with Russia, which allowed the release of 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians.

Moskalkova said that among those exchanged to Russia, there were four employees of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and soldiers. “Early this morning they landed on the Russian soil,” she said in an online post.

Ukraine carried out its first prisoner swap with Russia at the end of March, a month after the start of the conflict, when ten Russian soldiers were exchanged for ten Ukrainian soldiers, and eleven Russian civilian sailors, rescued from a ship that sank in the Black Sea near Odessa, for 19 Ukrainian civilians captured by the Russians.

Several other exchanges of soldiers and civilians have already taken place between Ukrainians and Russians since the beginning of the war on February 24, without being officially confirmed each time by the two parties.

US Senate approves trade, energy measures to punish Russia

The US Senate has voted unanimously to remove the "most favored nation" trade status for Russia and its close ally Belarus in one bill and ban oil imports from there.

Western countries have slapped unprecedented sanctions on Russia since President Vladimir Putin declared a military offensive against Ukraine on February 24.

The new measures were proposed after Ukrainian troops began showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces in Bucha and other towns near Kiev.

Von der Leyen accused Moscow of “waging a cruel, ruthless war, also against Ukraine's civilian population,” saying that the bloc needed “to sustain utmost pressure at this critical point.”

Russia denied any civilian killings, saying that the images were fakes produced by Ukrainian forces or that the deaths occurred after Russian soldiers pulled out of the areas.

"It is simply a well-directed but tragic show," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It is a forgery aimed at denigrating the Russian army.  And it will not work."

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