Germany's defense minister unveils more assistance for Ukraine
>> German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius vowed Tuesday to keep supporting Ukraine's efforts to win its war against Russia, pledging further military aid worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
The new support is to include further Iris-T SLM anti-aircraft missile systems as well as anti-tank mines and 155-millimeter artillery shells, German news agency dpa reported.
“We are talking about 20,000 additional shells,” Pistorius said at a joint news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, in Kyiv, according to dpa.
Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president's office, said it was “a great aid package.”
Pistorius' unannounced trip to the Ukrainian capital came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Ukraine and pledged American support “for the long haul,” including an additional $100 million in weapons from U.S. stockpiles.
The visits appeared to be part of an international political effort to keep the war in the public mind as other issues clamor for attention, including the Israel-Hamas conflict.
European Council President Charles Michel also arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday, which is the 10th anniversary of what Ukraine calls its Revolution of Dignity. That uprising brought momentous change for Ukraine, pushing it closer to the West and bringing confrontation with Moscow.
Pistorius paid tribute to the demonstrators who were killed during the proEuropean protests 10 years ago, dpa reported.
“Courageous people of all ages took to the streets for freedom, for rapprochement with Europe, and paid for it with their lives,” Pistorius said. He put red roses at a makeshift memorial to those killed.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in a video message, saluted the Ukrainian desire for freedom and its application to join the 27-nation European Union. “The future of Ukraine is in the European Union,” she said.
“The future that the Maidan fought for has finally just begun,” she said in a reference to central Kyiv's Independence Square.
For Moscow, the Ukrainian revolt was fomented by Western interests, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday reaffirmed the Kremlin's view that it was “a coup, a forceful coup financed from abroad.”
Ukraine's current fight to push out the Kremlin's forces has lasted almost 21 months. A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive apparently has yielded no major changes on the battlefield, and another tough winter of attritional warfare lies ahead.
The U.K. defense ministry said Russia could target Ukraine's power grid again, just like last winter when Moscow sought to wear down local resistance by denying civilians home heating and running water.
“Russia has now refrained from launching its premier air-launched cruise missiles from its heavy bomber fleet for nearly two months, likely allowing it to build up a substantial stock of these weapons,” the ministry in London said Tuesday.