A defiant Zelensky tells reporters the U.S. secretaries of state and defense will visit Kyiv.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine gave a defiant news conference in Kyiv on Saturday and revealed that the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, and the defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, would visit Kyiv on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment or confirmation from the U.S. State Department or the Pentagon, which has said Mr. Austin would be in Germany next week for meetings about Ukraine’s future needs.

Mr. Zelensky spoke to reporters in a subway station in Kyiv, the capital, as Russia continued to press its offensive in the east and batter Ukrainian cities, including with a missile strike that killed at least eight people in the southern port of Odesa.

Mr. Zelensky lingered over questions of Western weapon supplies and Russian war crimes. He sat on a low stage, far enough underground to be secure from airstrikes. He apologized for the noise as trains rumbled by. Read more

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