The Ukrainian presidency stated that the US Secretary of State and Defense, Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, met in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky, while the Russian forces announced the second phase of what they described as the special military operation in Ukraine.

And the US Associated Press quoted an (unnamed) Ukrainian presidential adviser as saying that the Americans held talks with President Zelensky, without giving further details.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian president said the purpose of the visit was to discuss the delivery of US arms shipments to Ukraine.

For his part, Oleksiy Aristovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, reiterated Kyiv's desire to receive "offensive weapons", stressing that "American officials would not have come here if they were not prepared to give" weapons.

This is the first visit by US officials to the country since the conflict began on February 24, and it comes after European leaders made several visits to Kiev in recent weeks.


Embassy "siege"

In the context of tension between Washington and Moscow, the Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said that the US authorities are obstructing the work of his country's embassy in the United States.

He added that the Russian embassy in Washington is under siege by US government agencies and institutions, as he put it.

The Russian ambassador indicated that Bank of America had closed the accounts of the two Russian consulates in Houston and New York.

The Russian ambassador explained that the embassy receives threats by phone and through letters, and during a specific period, exit from the embassy was prevented.

The second phase

In the field developments, the Russian forces announced that the second phase of the Russian military operation in Ukraine will focus on tightening control over Donbass and southern Ukraine, thus opening the way for the Russian army to reach its forces in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

This coincides with talk about the possibility of holding a referendum on independence for the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced that its missile and artillery forces carried out more than 400 fire missions on Saturday evening, destroying the stores of an explosives production company in the Pavlograd region of the Dnipro region of central Ukraine.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov added that Russian forces also targeted several military facilities in Ukraine.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian General Staff announced on Sunday that its forces repelled 12 Russian attacks in the past 24 hours in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the east of the country.

Since last February 24, Russia has launched what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine with the aim of disarming it and ensuring that Kyiv does not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The war, which reached its second month on Sunday, has displaced more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes.


Negotiations

On the political front, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation, Rostim Omirov, denied that his country had retreated from its negotiating commitments, as Russia had claimed.

He explained - in an interview with Al Jazeera - that what is happening in the negotiations is different from what the Russians say to the media.

Omerov stressed that negotiations are still continuing, noting that Kyiv wants international partners to guarantee guarantees because it does not trust the Russian side.

A member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation stressed that his country is focusing at the current stage on providing it with weapons, especially defensive ones, explaining that Ukraine needs missile launchers and air defense systems to protect its airspace.

Omerov added that Kyiv has informed Washington of the weapons it needs and has received some, and is waiting for some others.

And the Ukrainian president renewed - in a press conference held at a metro station in Kyiv Central Square on Saturday - his call for direct negotiations between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin, considering that the war can only be stopped by those who started it, as he put it.

Zelensky had threatened to withdraw from any negotiations with Russia to end the war if it organized a popular referendum in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, paving the way for declaring its independence.