Blinken visits Ukraine to show U.S. support amid Kyiv's flagging counteroffensive

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday visited the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv in a show of support as the Ukrainian military struggles to penetrate Russian defenses and recapture significant tracts of its territory.

Blinken vowed that the U.S. would "continue to walk side-by-side" with Ukraine and celebrated the "extraordinary bravery and resilience of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian forces, Ukraine’s leadership," CNN reported.

The U.S. official and Ukrainian personnel further discussed recent inroads against Russian forces on the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

"We’ve seen good progress in the counteroffensive, which is very heartening. We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs not only to succeed in the counteroffensive, but it has what it needs for the long term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent… so that in the future, aggressions like this don’t happen again," Blinken asserted.

His assessment of the counteroffensive's success may be optimistic, however. Though Ukrainian forces did recently capture the village of Robotnye, to the south of the first Russian defensive line, they have largely been unable to capitalize on that inroad to make further gains and Kyiv's forces remain in front of the bulk of Russian defenses.

In terms of territory, Ukraine's counteroffensive saw greater success in Donetsk, with Ukraine reclaiming several villages south of Velyka Novosilka, according to the Institute for the Study of War. That push, however, saw Ukrainian troops stop short of approaching the first Russian defensive line.

Blinken's optimistic tone about the offensive comes ahead of a likely tense budget battle over continued aid to Ukraine, with House Republicans increasingly signaling their opposition to continued financial support for the Zelensky regime.

Appearing on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Tuesday, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene insisted she would not "vote to continue to slaughter people in Ukraine and to continue to fund the war in Ukraine. This has to stop we need a peace resolution between those two countries."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.