KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will hold meetings in Germany this week as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month and vows to end military conflict between the nearly three countries. He reiterated his call to allies to strengthen their air defenses. In no time at all, the War of 2000 broke out.
President Zelensky said at a meeting of the Ramstein Group to be held Thursday at Germany's Ramstein Air Base, which will be attended by dozens of partner countries, “to improve defense capabilities not only against missiles, but also against guided bombs and Russian aviation. This includes countries that can contribute to the
“We will continue to discuss this matter with them and persuade them,” President Zelenskiy said in a speech Saturday night. “The mission remains the same: to strengthen air defense.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin will also attend the meeting. Biden was originally scheduled to attend the October summit in Ramstein, but the meeting was postponed due to the response to Hurricane Milton, which hit the United States.
In his final weeks in office, the Biden administration was pressing President Trump to send as much military aid as possible to Ukraine before he takes office on January 20th.
During his campaign, President Trump claimed he could end the war in a day, but his comments cast doubt on whether the United States would continue to be Ukraine's largest and most important military backer. .
President Zelensky said last week that Trump is “powerful and unpredictable” and that these qualities could be a decisive factor in his policy approach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine and last year exploited weaknesses in Ukraine's defenses, advancing slowly in the eastern region despite heavy losses in troops and equipment. The course of the war is not in Ukraine's favor. The country is short on personnel on the front lines and needs continued support from Western partners.
President Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses in fighting in Russia's Kursk region.
“Yesterday and today, Russian troops were defeated by a North Korean infantry battalion and Russian paratroopers in battles near a single village, Makhnovka, in the Kursk region,” Zelenskiy said. “This is important.”
President Zelenskyy said last month that 3,000 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in Kursk. In Kursk, Ukrainian forces launched an invasion in August, dealing a blow to Russia's prestige and forcing it to withdraw some troops from a slow offensive in eastern Ukraine. .
The invasion did not significantly change the dynamics of the war, with military analysts saying Ukraine lost about 40% of the land it originally captured.
In other developments, a Russian guided bomb attack Saturday evening wounded nine people in the border town of Seminivka in northern Ukraine's Chernihiv region, local officials said.
The Russian government sent 103 drones into Ukraine overnight through Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 61 drones were destroyed due to electronic jamming and 42 were likely lost.
Russia's Ministry of Defense announced that 61 Ukrainian-made drones were shot down in five regions in western Russia overnight through Sunday. No casualties were reported, but Rostov region governor Yuri Slyusar said falling debris from the drone had damaged residential buildings and cars.
