Rustem Umerov spoke to Pentagon chief about support for Ukraine

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov has said that today, 1 October, he held talks with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. Lloyd Austin promised Ukraine further support from the USA. This was stated on Twitter of the head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.

Today had a telephone conversation with my American colleague to discuss further military assistance from the United States," he wrote.

Umerov stressed that during the conversation Austin assured that Ukrainian servicemen will have the support of the United States.

In turn, Umerov thanked the American colleague for support.

Recall that in the United States there was a risk of suspension of the government because of the position of the far-right Republicans, who blocked the adoption of budget bills for the next fiscal year, demanding to cut, in their opinion, unnecessary expenditures, including those planned to help Ukraine.

To avoid a "shutdown" that was supposed to take place on 1 October, yesterday, 30 September, the House of Representatives approved temporary funding for the government without funds for Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden said that his country will continue to support Ukraine. At the same time, he said that Congress should "stop playing games".

We would like to add that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion by Russia, the United States has already allocated more than 66bn dollars in aid to Ukraine, most of which is military support. This is more than Washington allocates in aid to any other country. At the same time, the support for Ukraine is a small amount if we compare it with the entire US defence budget, which amounts to 1.77 trillion dollars.