US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday for a surprise visit, his first visit to the Ukrainian capital in a year and his third since Russia invaded Ukraine, CNN and The Guardian reported.

This morning it became known that Blinken is already in Kyiv, after the press unofficially learned about this possible visit a day ago, but the State Department did not want to comment.

Blinken arrived on the same day that Ukrainian forces successfully repelled a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian capital.

This is the third visit of the US Secretary of State since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Anthony Blinken will be in the Ukrainian capital for two days and is expected to announce a new US aid package worth more than $1 billion, Reuters reports. He will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

Blinken’s visit comes days after President Zelenskyy fired his defense minister earlier this week amid several corruption scandals related to military procurement and an increased counteroffensive by the Ukrainian military in the country’s southeast.

U.S. media often quoted anonymous U.S. officials criticizing the counteroffensive as too slow and poorly planned, angering Ukrainian officials.

A US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Blinken wanted a direct assessment of the counteroffensive during the trip. “I believe that the most important thing is to get a real assessment from the Ukrainians themselves,” the official said. “We want to see, hear how they are going to move forward in the coming weeks,” he added.