Top US military leaders will be in Germany to discuss Ukraine’s wartime needs as Russia has conducted one of its deadliest airstrikes in the conflict and Ukraine presses its offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and General CQ Brown will host a meeting on Friday at Ramstein Air Force Base of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, made up of military leaders from more than 50 nations that have regularly provided funds and weapon systems to bolster Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Those countries face renewed calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for additional air defences and loosened restrictions on how far into Russia Ukraine can fire American-provided munitions.
He has long pushed allies to go further to support Ukraine’s effort to fend off Russia.
The meeting comes after Russia used two ballistic missiles to target a military academy and nearby hospital this week in Ukraine, killing more than 50 people and wounding over 270 others, in one of the deadliest strikes of the war.
“Air defence systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere,” Mr Zelensky said on his Telegram channel this week.
“Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now.”
So far, the Biden administration has kept relatively strict control over how the missiles it provides Ukraine can be used.
Ukraine can defensively fire at Russian targets along the border, but the US prohibits their use deeper into Russia, out of concern that such a strike would further escalate the war.
There has been no change in the policy on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons, Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday.
That the group of military leaders from Ukraine’s allies has continued to meet and agree to send weapons is extraordinary, however.
Global pressure on weapons stockpiles has increased and contributors such as the US face competing demands for that aid to bolster security in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
Since 2022, the member nations together have provided about 106 billion dollars in security assistance to Ukraine.
The US has provided more than 56 billion dollars of that total.
The group’s meeting also comes as Mr Zelensky has signalled a major reshuffling of his cabinet-level leaders.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, one of Ukraine’s most recognisable faces on the international stage, resigned on Wednesday before the expected reorganisation.
Ukraine also has made a fundamental shift in its tactics in the war, seizing Russian territory in the Kursk region during an offensive that began a few weeks ago.
Ukraine’s military is trying to maintain control of that land, while Russian President Vladimir Putin pushes his forces deeper into eastern Ukraine.
Both sides are prepared for difficult fighting during the winter.
Both sides have become entrenched over the two previous winters, and Ukrainians have endured brutal conditions without electricity or heat as Russia has targeted its power grid.
