Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking on Friday with U.S. military officials and 50 friendly nations, called for more weapons even as the Biden administration confirmed it would rush another $250 million in security aid to Kyiv.
Zelenskiy added that already promised systems were arriving too late, and reiterated his desire to directly attack Russia deep inside its borders.
AP Reports U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the summit, held at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany, came at a dynamic moment in the fight against Russia, as Ukraine is conducting its first offensive operations of the war, facing a major threat from Russian forces near key positions in the Donbas region.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly said in public that what is needed most now is permission to use the weapons provided by the United States and Western countries to infiltrate Russia.
The United States has so far not supported this, fearing it could lead to further escalation of the war.
“We need to have this long-range capability not only on the fragmented territories of Ukraine, but also on Russian territory, so that Russia has an incentive to pursue peace,” Zelensky told the group.
“We need to make Russian cities, and even the Russian military, consider what they want: peace or Putin.”
Flashback: Biden: Cluster bombs sent to Ukraine because we 'lack the ammunition we need'
Following Russia's latest deadly airstrikes, Zelenskiy renewed his call for the United States to further ease restrictions and further strengthen Western capabilities to strike deep inside Russian territory.
As Breitbart News reported, earlier this week a Russian ballistic missile struck a Ukrainian military academy and a nearby hospital, marking one of the deadliest single attacks by Russian forces against a Ukrainian city since the invasion resumed two and a half years ago.
Friday's meeting is expected to focus on boosting production of air defense and artillery supplies and bolstering Ukraine's benefits from expanding its own defense industrial base in order to put the country on a stronger footing as the final days of U.S. President Joe Biden's term approaches, The Associated Press reported.
Austin said Western countries were working with the IV on procuring replacement missiles for the Soviet-era S-300 air defense systems.
As a result, the UK has announced that it will provide Ukraine with 650 missile systems worth $213.13 million to protect it from Russian drone and bombing attacks.
Meanwhile, Canada has announced that it will send 80,840 surplus small unarmed air-to-surface rockets and 1,300 warheads to Ukraine in the coming months.
Member states have provided a combined total of approximately $106 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2022, with the United States alone providing more than $56 billion of that.
