Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to sign bilateral security agreements with Germany and France on Friday. Kyiv is struggling to consolidate support nearly two years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion.
On the Ukrainian leader’s agenda this Friday: a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, then with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
The bilateral security agreements to be signed there follow an agreement signed by Ukraine with the United Kingdom during British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s visit to Kyiv last month. This agreement covers the next ten years.
Volodymyr Zelensky will travel on Saturday to the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top security and foreign policy officials, where he plans to meet, among others, US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Ukraine has gone on the defensive in the war, hampered by low ammunition supplies and personnel shortages, although it has continued its strikes behind the 1,500-kilometer front line, which is largely static.
In recent days, European allies have appealed to the U.S. Congress to approve a package that includes aid to Ukraine, a $60 billion allocation that would largely go to U.S. defense entities to manufacture missiles, munitions and other military equipment that are sent to the battlefields in Ukraine.
Olaf Scholz went to Washington a week ago to emphasize the urgency of releasing American funds. After meeting with President Joe Biden, the chancellor said: “Let’s not beat around the bush: US support is essential to know if Ukraine will be able to defend itself.”
Germany is now the second largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, and Olaf Scholz recently called on other European countries to step up their arms deliveries.
Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited Berlin only once, in May last year. Friday’s trip will be his third visit to Paris since the invasion, after those in February and May 2023.