Blinken in Kyiv tries to rally sagging Ukrainian spirits as Russia makes new military gains

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them during a visit to Kyiv that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way after months of political delays will make a “real difference” on the battlefield.

After a day of meetings with senior officials, civil society figures and university students when he exhorted them against being discouraged, Blinken took to the stage at a bar in Ukraine's capital to play rhythm guitar and sing with a local band on Neil Young's 1989 hit “Rockin' in the Free World."

The performance, and a series of sunny comments from Blinken about Ukraine’s battlefield prospects, was a startling juxtaposition to what analysts have called one of the most dangerous moments for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian forces have taken swaths of territory along Ukraine’s northeast border, and thousands of civilians in the Kharkiv region have fled the increasingly intense attacks.

But Blinken told Ukrainian leaders during his unannounced visit to Kyiv that despite a lengthy delay in U.S. military aid that left them vulnerable to these renewed Russian military strikes, more weaponry is coming and some has already arrived.

He made the case even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed to him personally for more air defense systems to protect civilians under intense Russian fire in the northeast. Blinken, on fourth trip to Kyiv since the war began, also lambasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for underestimating Ukraine's determination to fight back.

“We meet at a critical moment,” he told students at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. “The coming weeks and months will demand a great deal of Ukrainians, who have already sacrificed so much. I’ve come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone.”

He also pushed back on the notion that time is on Putin’s side.

“Putin has it wrong — time is on Ukraine’s side," Blinken said. "As the war goes on, Russia is going back in time. Ukraine is moving forward.”

But the reality on the ground is that Moscow’s troops have captured about 100 to 125 square kilometers (40 to 50 square miles) in recent days in the northeast Kharkiv region, including at least seven villages, according to open-source monitoring analysts. People had already left most of those villages, but the fighting drove out thousands of others.

Seeking to take advantage of Ukrainian shortages in manpower and weapons while new U.S. assistance is in transit, Russian forces also have been making a concerted push in the east to drive deeper into the partly occupied Donetsk region. The main focus of Russian attacks Tuesday was Pokrovsk, just inside the Ukrainian border in Donetsk, where the Kremlin’s forces launched 24 assaults, the Ukrainian general staff said in a report.

“We know this is a challenging time,” Blinken told Zelenskyy after arriving on an overnight train from Poland. But, he added that U.S. military aid is “going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”

Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package last month that sets aside $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which will go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and air defense systems. Since then, the Biden administration has announced $1.4 billion in short-term military assistance and $6 billion in longer-term support.

Zelenskyy thanked Blinken for the aid but said more is necessary, including two Patriot air defense systems urgently needed to protect Kharkiv.

“The people are under attack: civilians, warriors, everybody. They’re under Russian missiles,” he said.

Artillery, air defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, said a senior U.S. official traveling with Blinken who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Blinken’s meetings.

Moscow’s renewed offensive in Kharkiv is the most significant border incursion since the early days of the war, following months when the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line barely budged.

More than 7,500 civilians have been evacuated from the area, according to authorities. At the same time, the Kremlin’s forces are expanding their push to the northern border regions of Sumy and Chernihiv, Ukrainian officials say, and Kyiv's outgunned and outnumbered soldiers are struggling to hold them back.

Troops fought street to street on the outskirts of Vovchansk, among the largest towns in the Kharkiv area, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on national television. Two civilians were killed in Russian shelling Tuesday, he said.

The U.N. human rights office said the battles are taking a heavy toll.

“We are deeply concerned at the plight of civilians in Ukraine,” Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva. “In the Kharkiv region, the situation is dire.”

Russia in recent weeks also has launched wide attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. The operator of the national high-voltage electricity grid, Ukrenergo, said it was starting “controlled emergency shutdowns” for industries and households because of “a significant shortage of electricity in the system due to Russian shelling and an increase in consumption due to the cold weather.”

Blinken told Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal that the U.S. intends to support Kyiv beyond the war's end.

“The United States is determined, determined to help Ukraine succeed — succeed both in the battlefield victory but also succeed, as we would say, in winning the peace and building the strongest possible Ukraine,” Blinken said.

But delays in U.S. assistance, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war has preoccupied top administration officials, have triggered deep concerns in Kyiv and Europe. Blinken, for example, has visited the Middle East seven times since the war in Gaza began in October. His last trip to Kyiv was in September.

Blinken went with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba for lunch at a Kyiv pizza restaurant founded by Ukrainian veterans, calling it “superb.” On Blinken’s last visit, the pair ate at a recently reopened McDonald’s restaurant.

Blinken and other U.S. officials said despite some recent setbacks, Ukraine could still claim significant victories. Those include reclaiming some 50% of the territory Russian forces took in the early months of the war, boosting its economic standing and improving transportation and trade links, not least through military successes in the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Putin plans to make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Beijing has backed Moscow politically in the war and has sent machine tools, electronics and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weaponry.

Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

An apartment building damaged in the Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Police officers inspect part of a Russian missile that fell close to an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addresses students and and professors in Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, leaves the stage after addressing students and and professors in Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

From left, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Tom Sullivan and Spokesperson Matt Miller visit the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken works while traveling on a Ukraine Railways train to Kyiv, Monday, May 13, 2024, near Lviv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addresses students and and professors in Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fourth left, speaks during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, third right, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, attends a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, greets U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, greets U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, watches Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, greets U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, right, prior to their meeting in Kyiv Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, greets U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, arrives by train at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken works while traveling on a Ukraine Railways train to Kiev, Monday, May 13, 2024, near Lviv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, front, waits with Ukrainian Railways staff and others to greet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, arrives by train at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken works while traveling on a Ukraine Railways train to Kiev, Monday, May 13, 2024, near Lviv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, walks to board a Ukrainian Railways train at Przemysl Glowny train station while traveling to Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 13, 2024, from Przemysl, Poland. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greeted by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink after arriving by train at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station May 14, 2024, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski(Photographers name/Pool Photo via AP)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken works while traveling on a Ukraine Railways train to Kiev, Monday, May 13, 2024, near Lviv, Ukraine. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.

“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement.

The one-sentence statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.

The comment drew fury from Trump and his allies and further stoked conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a dearth of information following the July 13 attack.

Up until now, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had refused to provide information about what caused Trump’s injuries. Trump’s campaign has also declined to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to make the doctors there available for questions.

Updates have instead come either from Trump himself or from Trump’s former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, a staunch ally who now represents Texas in Congress. Though Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has come under considerable scrutiny and is not Trump’s primary care physician.

The FBI’s apparent reluctance to immediately vouch for the former president’s version of events has also raised fresh tension between the Republican nominee and the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency, which he could soon exert control over once again. Trump and his supporters have for years accused federal law enforcement of being weaponized against him, something Wray has consistently denied.

Speaking at an event later Friday in West Palm Beach Florida, Trump drew boos from the crowd when he described the suggestion that he may have been struck by glass or shrapnel instead of a bullet.

“Did you see the FBI today apologized?" he asked. “It just never ends with these people. ... We accept their apology.”

Trump appeared Friday for the first time without a bandage on his right ear. Photographs and video showed no sign of continued bleeding, and no distinct holes or gashes.

Questions about the extent and nature of Trump’s wound began immediately after the attack, as his campaign and law enforcement officials declined to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an attempted assassination by a gunman with a high-powered rifle.

Those questions have persisted despite photographs showing the trace of a projectile speeding past Trump’s head as well as Trump’s teleprompter glass intact after the shooting, and the account Trump himself gave in a Truth Social post within hours of the shooting that he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” he wrote.

Days later, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump recounted the scene in detail, while wearing a large gauze bandage over his right ear.

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard, on my right ear. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,’” he said.

“If I had not moved my head at that very last instant,” Trump said, “the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be here tonight.”

But the first medical account of Trump’s condition didn’t come until a full week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter last Saturday evening. In it, he said the bullet that struck Trump had “produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He also revealed Trump had received a CT scan at the hospital.

Federal law enforcement involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had declined to confirm that account. And Wray’s testimony offered apparently conflicting answers on the issue.

“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said, before he seemed to suggest it was indeed a bullet.

“I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” he said.

On Thursday, the FBI sought to clarify matters with a statement affirming that the shooting was an “attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.” The FBI also said Thursday that its Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene.

Jackson, who has been treating the former president since the night of the July 13 shooting, told The Associated Press on Thursday that any suggestion Trump’s ear was bloodied by anything other than a bullet was reckless.

“It was a bullet wound,” said Jackson. “You can’t make statements like that. It leads to all these conspiracy theories.”

In his letter Friday, Jackson insisted “there is absolutely no evidence” Trump was struck by anything other than a bullet and said it was “wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”

He wrote that at Butler Memorial Hospital, where the GOP nominee was rushed after the shooting, he was evaluated and treated for a “Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.”

“Having served as an Emergency Medicine physician for over 20 years in the United States Navy, including as a combat physician on the battlefield in Iraq,” he wrote, “I have treated many gunshot wounds in my career. Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors at nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.”

The FBI declined to comment on the Jackson letters.

Asked if the campaign would release those hospital records, or allow the doctors who treated him there to speak, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the media for asking.

“The media has no shame in engaging in disgusting conspiracy theories,” he said. “The facts are the facts, and to question an abhorrent assassination attempt that ultimately cost a life and injured two others is beyond the pale.”

In emails last week, he told the AP that “medical readouts” had already been provided.

“It’s sad some people still don’t believe a shooting happened,” Cheung said, “even after one person was killed and others were injured.”

Anyone who believes the conspiracies, he added, “is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, also urged Wray to correct his testimony in a letter Friday, saying the fact Trump had been hit by a bullet “was made clear in briefings my office received and should not be a point of contention.”

“As head of the FBI, you should not be creating confusion about such matters, as it further undercuts the agency’s credibility with millions of Americans,” he wrote.

Trump also lashed out at Wray in a post on his Truth Social network, saying it was “No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”

“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” he wrote.

On Friday, he called Wray’s comments “so damaging to the Great People that work in the FBI.”

Jackson has encountered significant scrutiny over the years.

After administering a physical to Trump in 2018, he drew headlines for suggesting that “if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old.”

He was reportedly demoted by the Navy after the Department of Defense inspector general released a scathing report on his conduct as a top White House physician that found Jackson had made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinates and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted worries from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.

Trump appointed Wray as FBI director in 2017 to replace the fired James Comey. But the then-president swiftly soured on his hire as the bureau continued its investigation into the Russian election interference.

Trump flirted openly with the idea of firing Wray as his term drew to a close, and he lashed out anew after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to recover boxes of classified documents from his presidency.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Believers' Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before a House committee about the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, on Capitol Hill. Wray said that the FBI will "leave no stone unturned" in its investigation of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, speaks during the Republican National Convention, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump reacts following an assassination attempt at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is escorted to a motorcade following an attempted assassination at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)