MOUNT VERNON, United States, Sept 1, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Ukraine's leader will
ask President Joe Biden on Wednesday for firm US support on military
modernization, worried about rising Russian pressure days after the US
withdrawal from Afghanistan.

  President Volodymyr Zelensky was invited to Washington after Biden
disappointed Ukraine by waiving most sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
being built from Russia to Germany, saying it was too late to stop the
project that Eastern European nations fear will erode their leverage against
Moscow.

  Zelensky visited the Pentagon on Tuesday hours after the last US troops
left Afghanistan as America's longest-ever war ended with the nearly 20-year-
old US-backed government crumbling to the Taliban.

  Russian officials have pointed to Afghanistan as a lesson for Ukraine,
which has relied on the West in a seven-year war against Moscow-linked
separatists, but Biden has insisted that he withdrew to end a costly
distraction from a larger US challenge of facing an assertive China and
Russia.

  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Zelensky that the United States was
committed to demanding that Russia "stop perpetuating the conflict" in
eastern Ukraine and leave Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized from Ukraine in
2014.

  "We will continue to stand with you in the face of this Russian
aggression," Austin said.

  He highlighted a new $60 million package for Ukraine that includes Javelin
anti-armor systems. He said the United States has committed $2.5 billion for
Ukraine's defense since 2014, when Russia intervened as Ukraine turned
increasingly Westward.

  The assistance took center stage in US politics in 2019 when then-president
Donald Trump held up military aid as he pressured Zelensky, a comedian turned
politician, to dig up dirt on Biden.

  - Seeing immediate threats -

  Western European nations have led opposition to Ukraine entering NATO,
fearing such a move would provoke Russia.

  Zelensky, speaking late Tuesday, said that he was looking more at immediate
needs for Ukraine, including its forces on the Black Sea, as more than 13,000
people have died in the conflict.

  "We have no time to think about strategy. We have to provide for as much
protection as we can to actually prevent a build-up" by Russia, Zelensky
said.

  "Ukraine needs a modern fleet and for this we need partners," he said. "I
would like to discuss this with President Biden."

  Russia earlier this year amassed an estimated 100,000 troops on Ukraine's
border and in Crimea, prompting fears of an invasion at the start of Biden's
term.

  Russian forces withdrew in April. But much of the equipment remained and
Zelensky voiced concern over a "dangerous" September as Russia carries out
military exercises with Belarus, whose authoritarian government has been
firmly in President Vladimir Putin's orbit.

  Zelensky said Ukraine, still reliant on aging Soviet equipment, wanted to
be a greater production partner of the United States and to cooperate more
closely on cybersecurity and preventing disinformation.

  "We're not asking for any gifts," Zelensky said. "We need opportunities for
our specialists."

  He also pledged to ramp up efforts against corruption, a long-running
concern for Biden -- who has repeatedly cited graft as a reason for dropping
support for the former Afghan government.

  Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center in Kiev, wrote in a
blog for the Washington-based Atlantic Council that Ukraine was far less
dependent on Western support than Afghanistan's former government.

  "Even so, the nature of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has set
off alarm bells throughout Ukraine and served as a wake-up call for anyone
who still believes that continued Western support can be relied upon
indefinitely," Getmanchuk wrote.