European countries have vowed to send billions of dollars in further funding to help Ukraine keep fighting Russia’s invasion, as a US envoy pursued peace efforts in a trip to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid growing questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to stop the more than three-year war.
Russian forces hold the advantage in Ukraine, with the war now in its fourth year. Ukraine has endorsed a US ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions. European governments have accused Putin of dragging his feet.
“Russia has to get moving” on the road to ending the war, US President Donald Trump posted on social media. He said the war is “terrible and senseless”
In Russia, the Kremlin on Friday said Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in St Petersburg. Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, initially met with Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, footage released by Russian media showed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff during his visit to Russia was discussing efforts to end the war with Putin and other officials. “This is another step in the negotiating process towards a ceasefire and an ultimate peace deal,” she said.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said Witkoff’s meeting with Putin lasted 4 1/2 hours, and cited the Kremlin as saying that the two discussed “aspects” of ending the war, without providing any details. After chairing a meeting of Ukraine’s Western backers in Brussels on Friday, British Defence Secretary John Healey said that new pledges of military aid totalled over 21 billion euros ($24 billion), “a record boost in military funding for Ukraine, and we are also surging that support to the frontline fight”.
Healey gave no breakdown of that figure, and Ukraine has in the past complained that some countries repeat old offers at such pledging conferences or fail to deliver real arms and ammunition worth the money they promise.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that Ukraine’s backers have provided around $21 billion so far in the first three months of this year.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday that more than $26 billion have been committed. Ahead of the “contact group” meeting at NATO headquarters, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said a key issue was strengthening his country’s air defences.
Standing alongside Healey at the end of it, Umerov described the meeting as “productive, effective and efficient,” and said that it produced “one of the largest” packages of assistance Ukraine has received. “We’re thankful to each nation that has provided this support,” he said.
Britain said that in a joint effort with Norway just over $580 million would be spent to provide hundreds of thousands of military drones, radar systems and anti-tank mines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his appeals for more Patriot systems since 20 people were killed a week ago, including nine children, when a Russian missile tore through apartment buildings and blasted a playground in his home town.
Zelenskyy joined Friday’s meeting by video link.
The Russian delay in accepting Washington’s proposal has frustrated Trump and fuelled doubts about whether Putin really wants to stop the fighting while his bigger army has momentum on the battlefield.
“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment late Thursday.
Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal, even though four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily. It is a meat grinder,” Bruce said Thursday about the war, adding that “nothing else can be discussed... Until the shooting and the killing stops.”
Ukrainian officials and military analysts believe Russia is preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in coming weeks to ramp up pressure and strengthen the Kremlin’s hand in the negotiations.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said his country would provide Ukraine with four IRIS-T short- to medium-range systems with missiles, as well as 30 missiles for use on Patriot batteries. The Netherlands plans to supply a Hawkeye air defence system, an airborne early warning aircraft.
