Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to sign bilateral security agreements with Germany and France as Kiev seeks to shore up support from the West nearly two years after Russia began an all-out war.
BERLIN — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to sign bilateral security agreements with Germany and France on Friday as Kiev seeks to shore up Western support nearly two years after Russia began all-out war. .
The Ukrainian leader will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin and continue on to Paris, where he will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The bilateral security and long-term support agreement follows a security agreement between Ukraine and the UK signed during British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's visit to Kiev last month. The agreement covers the next 10 years.
President Zelenskiy will continue on Saturday to attend the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of senior security and foreign policy officials, where he is scheduled to meet with US Vice President Kamala Harris and others.
Ukraine has been on the defensive in the war, hampered by a lack of ammunition supplies and a lack of manpower, despite continuing its offensive behind a nearly stationary 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front.
European allies have been pleading with the U.S. Congress in recent days to approve a package that includes aid for Ukraine. The $60 billion allocation will primarily go to U.S. defense agencies to manufacture missiles, munitions, and other military equipment that will be sent to the battlefields of Ukraine. Ukraine.
Scholz visited Washington a week ago and stressed the urgency of removing U.S. funding. After meeting with President Joe Biden, he said: “We should not do anything unreasonable. The question of whether Ukraine is in a position to defend itself requires support from the United States.” .
Germany is currently Ukraine's second-largest supplier of military aid after the United States, and Scholz recently called on other European countries to step up their efforts to provide more arms.
President Zelenskiy has visited Berlin once since the Russian invasion in February 2022, in May last year. Friday's visit will be his third visit to Paris since the invasion, following in February and May 2023.
