US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met for a couple of hours with Ukraine’s chief military officer, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, at an undisclosed location in southeastern Poland near the border with Ukraine.The meeting comes as the international community ramps up military assistance to Ukraine, including expanded training of Ukrainian troops by the US and the provision of a Patriot missile battery, tanks and increased air defence and other weapons systems by the US and a coalition of European and other nations.And it’s important – when you have two military professionals looking each other in the eye and talking about very, very important topics, there’s a difference.”Butler said there had been some hope that Zaluzhnyi would travel to Brussels for a meeting of NATO and other defence chiefs this week.In an interview with the Economist magazine in December, Zaluzhnyi said Ukraine needed 300 tanks, 600-700 infantry fighting vehicles and 500 howitzers to push back the invaders.Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops back during the second half of 2022 but, over the past two months, the front lines have largely been frozen in place despite both sides enduring heavy losses in relentless fighting."