Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko particularly noted a significant contribution of the United States to the development of the Ukrainian Army during the visit to the U.S. Coast Guard "Baltimore" within the working visit to the United States of America, the presidential press-service has reported.

"So far, we got over $1 billion in security assistance from the United States to support of the reforms of the Ukrainian national security and defense sector, support of the national security law and its implementation, which ensures interoperability of our army with that of USA and NATO," Poroshenko said.

The head of state said, "We appreciate a recent decision by the U.S. Congress even to increase this assistance. This is very supportive to our military allocations that already exceeded 6% of GDP."

According to him, this gesture of support has boosted defense cooperation with the United States and helped contain the growing Russian aggression.

"And I would like to repeat once again – today the best way to protect the free world is to protect Ukraine with new defensive systems, with robust support in reforms, as well as with new targeted sanctions and with persistent diplomatic pressure over Russia," the president said.