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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said long-term defence agreements being struck with Germany and France heralded a “new security architecture for Ukraine and new opportunities”.
Zelenskyy signed a bilateral defence accord with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Friday. Scholz described the pledge as a “historic step”.
No details of the long-term agreement were immediately made available by the German government. But it said it would provide an additional military aid package worth €1.13bn over four years, including 18 self-propelled howitzers, 18 other howitzers, a SkyNex air defence system and 100 interceptors for the IRIS-T air defence system.
The Ukrainian leader is expected in Paris on Friday evening to meet President Emmanuel Macron and sign a similar long-term security agreement with France.
Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak last month agreed a 10-year accord with Kyiv, including a pledge to build up the Ukrainian navy. Ukrainian officials say agreements are also close to completion with Canada, Italy and the Netherlands.
The security commitments stop short of mutual defence guarantees but are intended to build up Ukraine’s military capabilities over several years while sending a message to Moscow of western resolve in support of Kyiv two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The accords are also intended as a bridge to Ukraine’s eventual accession to Nato.
However, the message of western solidarity has been undercut by doubts over further US military assistance for Ukraine, which is being held up by sceptical Republicans in the House of Representatives, and by delays to some EU funding.
The EU last month agreed a four-year €50bn aid plan for general budgetary support, but a scheme to top up an EU fund used to buy arms for Kyiv by €5bn has been held up by differences among member states.
A $60bn US aid package proposed by the White House for Ukraine, one-third of it military, is stuck in Congress.
US House speaker Mike Johnson, an ally of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, on Thursday adjourned the house for a recess of almost two weeks without putting the Senate-approved aid package for Ukraine to a vote.
Ukraine’s European allies have meanwhile made further bilateral military aid pledges for 2024, including €8bn from Germany and £2.5bn from Britain.
France has come under scrutiny for supposedly providing less weaponry to Ukraine than other European allies such as Germany and the UK.
Data collected by the Kiel Institute in Germany puts France in 14th place globally, with military assistance since February 2022 worth only €600mn, while Germany has given €17.7bn and the UK €9.1bn.
French officials have disputed those figures, which they say dramatically undercounts their contribution, but have not provided their own.
Writing in Le Monde, French foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné said: “The efforts today in favour of Ukraine are nothing compared with those we would have to deploy against a Russia that considered itself victorious.”
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