“We will continue to provide Ukraine with historic levels of security assistance. Later this week, the Administration will announce the next presidential drawdown package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine,” John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House, said in a July 19th briefing.
Earlier this month, the British intelligence released information about Russia’s plans to annex additional territories in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions: “Russia is laying the groundwork for annexation of Ukrainian territory it controls, in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Kirby said. He added, that intelligence provided the information that Russia is beginning to execute an “annexation plan” similar to what was implemented during the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Kirby also noted that the US has full information about every stage of this plan’s implementation.
During the briefing, John Kirby assured that in the event that Russia repeats the annexation scenario in 2022, the response of the United States and its partners will be swift and severe: “Russia will face additional sanctions and become even more of a global pariah than it is now. We will never recognize any purportedly annexed territories belonging to Russia,” noted the Coordinator.