US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy arrived in Ukraine, on Wednesday, where they will meet with senior government officials in Kiev, in what is considered “the first visit of its kind in more than 10 years.”

The American minister said that it is a decisive moment to support Kiev in its war against the Russian invasion, pointing out that he will take advantage of his visit to hear directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and others about Kiev’s current goals in the war, and what Washington can do to help it.

Zelensky calls on Western countries to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles, and lift restrictions on their use to strike targets such as military airports inside Russia.

American officials doubted the possibility of taking this step, amid fears of sparking a direct conflict between the West and Russia, but US President Joe Biden said, on Tuesday evening, that there was room to resolve the matter.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced control of the town of Novorodivka in eastern Ukraine, while German Chancellor Olaf Schulz called for the resumption of peace negotiations, with Russia's participation.

Blinken refused to say whether Washington would allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons deep inside Russia.

Iranian missiles

The visit comes a day after Blinken said, in London, that Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran, and would likely use them in Ukraine within weeks, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened broader European security.

Blinken said that the growing military cooperation between Iran and Russia poses a threat to all of Europe, and added that Washington had specifically warned Iran that supplying Russia with ballistic missiles would be a “major escalation.”

On Tuesday, the United States, Britain, France and Germany announced the imposition of new sanctions against Russia and Iran, claiming that the latter had sent ballistic missiles to Moscow, despite warnings from the West.

For its part, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Iran considers reports of the transfer of Iranian weapons to Russia to be “ugly propaganda” to hide Western military support for Israel.

Later this month, Zelensky will travel to the United States, where he will present a plan to President Joe Biden and the two November election candidates, which he hopes will bring the war closer to an end.

Russian forces, which have controlled about a fifth of Ukraine since their invasion in February 2022, are advancing east of the country in an attempt to control the entire Donbas region.