Approval of $61bn aid from US shows Ukraine will not be abandoned, says Zelenskiy

Ukrainian president urges Senate to ratify aid package so that it can strengthen frontline with Russia

Ukraine’s president said the vote on Saturday by the US House of Representatives to pass a long-delayed $61bn military aid package demonstrated that his country would not abandoned by the west in its effort to fight the Russian invasion.

Voldoymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with US television that the vote showed Ukraine would not be “a second Afghanistan”, whose pro-western government collapsed during an American-led pullout in the summer of 2021.