World leaders gather in Kyiv to show support on Ukraine war anniversary
Leaders from across Europe and Canada gathered in Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, amid increasing uncertainty over the United States' continued support for Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and leaders of Baltic and Nordic nations gathered for an international summit in support of Ukraine, as European officials rushed to provide billions of dollars in financial and military assistance, News.Az reports citing The Washington Post.
Von der Leyen announced the European Union would deliver some $3.6 billion of preapproved aid in March, in addition to more than $1 billion from Spain. The Spanish aid comes on top of $1 billion it provided in 2024 through a bilateral security and defense agreement.
“We must speed up the immediate delivery of weapons and ammunition,” von der Leyen wrote in a statement posted on the European Commission website Monday. “And this will be at the heart of our work in the coming weeks.”
E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is mobilizing European countries to put together a package worth billions of dollars in additional military aid for Ukraine for 2025. The efforts have taken on extra urgency by what appears to be a shift in U.S. support for Ukraine.
President Donald Trump has opened direct negotiations with Russia, ending Moscow’s diplomatic isolation, and is expected to soon meet with Putin. He has also stated, falsely, that Ukraine started the war and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator.
The aid package is still under discussion and European foreign ministers will meet Monday in Brussels. Some officials have floated a price tag ranging from $6 billion to more than $20 billion.
The goal of the plan, by the E.U.’s diplomatic service, is to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition, air defenses, drones and other weapons through cash or equipment provided.
“Today around the table, I heard a broad support for the initiative,” Kallas said at a news conference in Brussels. “We didn’t have concrete numbers in the initiative so that the leaders would fill them in.
“It’s important to send also the signal that we are able to do this,” Kallas said, adding that details should be decided at an emergency summit of European leaders next week.
In announcing Spain’s military aid package at the summit, Sánchez said “the freedom, security and future of all Europeans” depends on a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. “Diplomacy alone will not be enough,” he said.
Writing on Telegram on Monday, as he prepared to receive the European leaders in Kyiv, Zelensky wrote that “three years after the start of Putin’s three-day ‘special military operation,’ Ukraine is alive, fighting, and our country has more friends in the world than ever before.
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