White House Will Announce a New Arms Transfer to Ukraine This Week

Deputy national security adviser Jon Finer says the US will announce a new weapons package for Ukraine this week. Kyiv is expecting more arms for hosting a meeting with high-ranking US officials.

Finer told NBC’s Meet the Press’s Kristen Welker, “We’ve been announcing deliverables, which is a fancy word for things that we are providing to the Ukrainians to enable their fight, just about every day and if not every day, every week, and we will have more to say about that in the week ahead.”

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country finally received the weapons Kyiv requested. Finer claimed the military equipment was "having a significant effect on the ground.”

However, on Saturday, Zelensky stated he expected high-level US officials to visit Kyiv and bring weapons. "You can’t come to us empty-handed today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,″ the Ukrainian president said.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky, confirmed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were in Kyiv on Sunday night. "Yes, they’re meeting with the president. Let’s hope something will be decided on further help," Arestovych said.

Since Russia invaded, the US approved the transfer of $3.4 billion in weapons to Ukraine. The latest arms packages include Howitzers and new "Phoenix Ghost" drones the Pentagon developed for Ukraine.