evidence: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv on Wednesday for his third trip to the Ukrainian capital since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, where he doubled down on US support for Kyiv’s counteroffensive, announcing more than a billion dollars of additional US aid and underscoring for an audience back home why the US needs to commit billions of dollars more to help defeat Vladmir Putin. [...] Blinken’s visit to Kyiv came less than a month after President Joe Biden asked for more than $24 billion to help Ukraine defeat Russia, as some polls show the American public’s support for continued funding is softening. This visit aimed to help the administration make the case for that continued support to the American people, a senior US State Department official said. [...] Blinken will remain in Ukraine on Thursday.