The Ukrainian president has voiced optimism about the prospect of an end to the war, but says his country still badly needs more supplies from its allies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with top US military leaders and more than 50 partner nations on Friday to press for more weapons support from the West.
Speaking at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group summit at Germany’s Rammstein air base, the Ukrainian leader praised his armed forces’ 1,300-square-kilometre incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, celebrating not just a military advantage but a major symbolic victory.
“He [Putin] was preparing to launch a new offensive against our city of Sumy, and we have turned the tables and are pushing the war into Russia through our counter-offensive,” Zelenskyy said.
He went on to say Ukraine wants to “end this war” and peace is the ultimate outcome.
“We want to save our people. First of all, our country.”
US pledges more funding
The summit was convened as Washington announced it would provide another $250 million (€225 million) in security assistance to Kyiv.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin described the current state of play as a dynamic moment in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, with Kyiv it conducts its first full-fledged offensive operations of the war on Russian soil while facing a significant threat from Russian forces near a key hub in the Donbas region.
Austin cautioned that While the Kursk incursion has put Russia on the defensive, “we know Putin’s malice runs deep”.
Recent deadly airstrikes by Russia have renewed Zelenskyy’s calls for the US to further loosen restrictions on the use of its military hardware and thus boost its ability to strike deeper inside Russian territory.
However, the summit meeting’s main focus was expected to be the sourcing ot air defence and artillery supplies and shoring up Ukraine’s domestic defence industrial base.
Western partner nations are working with Ukraine to source a substitute missile for its Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems, Austin said.
Members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group have met several times over the past two years to try and supply Ukraine’s mammoth artillery and air defence needs.
The materiel provided ranges from hundreds of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition to some of the West’s most sophisticated air defence systems, and now fighter jets.
Since 2022, member nations have provided about $106 billion (€95 billion) in security assistance to Ukraine. The US alone has provided more than $56 billion (€50 billion) of that total.
