MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klymkin met with members of the US House of Representatives on Tuesday, where the conflict in southeast Ukraine took centre stage, according to the ministry's press service.
"The meeting centered around discussions of the situation in Donbas and the issue of providing our state with military aid to fight Russian aggression," the ministry said in a statement.
According to the press service, Klymkin met with members of the Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Affairs, Congressmen Joe Wilson, Reid Ribble and Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo.
A 2016 US defense budget, however, earmarks $200 million in lethal defensive military aid to Ukraine. Independent studies of other congressional proposals tallied up to $1 billion in US military aid to Ukraine over the next year.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's statement on Tuesday added that the sides have "agreed that the provision of transatlantic solidarity is a key condition for the early resolution of the conflict in Donbas."
Klymkin's visit to Washington took place against the backdrop of Contact Group conflict reconciliation talks scheduled for Wednesday in Minsk. The Belarusian capital was the scene of the February 12 accords hammered out by French, German, Russian and Ukrainian leaders that gathered under the so-called Normandy Format.
On Wednesday, the group of Ukrainian, Russian, self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics as well as OSCE delegates are expected to discuss the formation of working subgroups to oversee the fulfilment of the Minsk agreements.
The Ukrainian conflict pitted government forces against Donbass independence supporters in mid-April 2014 and has claimed over 6,000 lives in a little over a year, according to the United Nations.
