Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used a meeting Friday with top United States military leaders and 50 partner nations to call for yet more weaponry even as the Biden administration confirmed it would rush another $250 million in security assistance to Kyiv.
Zelensky added systems that were promised already have been too slow to arrive as he again stated his desire to directly strike at Russia deep behind its borders.
AP reports U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the meeting of the leaders at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany was taking place during a dynamic moment in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, as it conducts its first offensive operations of the war while facing a significant threat from Russian forces near a key hub in the Donbas.
Zelensky used the public appearance to repeat his view that what’s needed most now is for the U.S. and the West to allow him to use the weapons they provided to reach inside Russia.
The U.S. has not supported this previously out of concern it would further escalate the war.
“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” Zelensky argued to the members.
“We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”
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Recent deadly airstrikes by Russia have renewed Zelensky’s calls for the U.S. to further loosen restrictions and obtain even greater Western capabilities to strike deeper inside Russia.
As Breitbart News reported, earlier this week Russian ballistic missiles struck a military academy and a nearby hospital in Ukraine, one of the deadliest single attacks by Russian forces against a Ukrainian city since the invasion started again two and a half years ago.
The AP report notes the meeting Friday was expected to focus on resourcing more air defense and artillery supplies and shoring up gains on expanding Ukraine’s own defense industrial base, to put it on more solid footing as the final days of Joe Biden’s U.S. presidency wind down.
Western partner nations were working with iv to source a substitute missile for its Soviet-era S-300 air defense systems, Austin said.
To that end the UK said it would provide Ukraine with 650 missile systems worth $213.13 million to help protect the country from Russian drones and bombing.
Canada, meanwhile, said it will send 80,840 surplus small unarmed air-to-surface rockets to Ukraine as well as 1,300 warheads in the coming months.
Since 2022, the member nations together have provided about $106 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. The U.S. alone has provided more than $56 billion of that total.
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