KYIV (Dispatches) -- A senior U.S. Congressional delegation met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and promised to try to ensure continued support in the war against Russia.
The delegation - which included Representative Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee - was the latest in a series of high-profile American visitors to Ukraine.
“The United States, along with allies and partners around the world, have stood with Ukraine by providing economic, military, and humanitarian assistance,” the delegation said in a statement.
“We will continue to seek ways to support President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people as effectively as possible as they continue their brave stand,” they added.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that Washington would send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems to Ukraine, bringing the total provided so far to 16.
The statement from the delegation on Saturday made no specific reference to weapons transfers. Separately, Smith was quoted as telling the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that Washington and its allies were ready to hand over more multiple launch rocket systems.
Russian defense ministry officials on Sunday insisted that an airstrike on the port of Odesa — less than a day after Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement on resuming grain shipments from there — had hit only military targets.
“In the seaport in the city of Odesa, on the territory of a shipyard, sea-based high-precision long-range missiles destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the U.S. to the Kyiv regime,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a daily briefing.
Zelensky had said in his nightly televised address Saturday evening that the attack on Odesa “destroyed the very possibility” of dialogue with Russia.
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday that Moscow had attacked Odesa’s sea port with four cruise missiles, two of which had been shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
Command spokeswoman Nataliya Humenyuk said that no grain storage facilities were hit. Turkey’s defense minister, however, said he had had reports from Ukrainian authorities that one missile struck a grain silo while another landed nearby, although neither affected loading at Odesa’s docks.
It was not immediately clear how the airstrike would affect plans to resume shipping Ukrainian grain by sea in safe corridors out of three Ukrainian Black Sea ports: Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
Russia and Ukraine on Friday signed identical agreements with the UN and Turkey in Istanbul aimed at clearing the way for the shipment of millions of tons of desperately needed Ukrainian grain, as well as the export of Russian grain and fertilizer. Senior UN officials voiced hopes that the deal would end a months-long standoff brought about by the war in Ukraine that threatened food security around the globe.
The agreement committed both