Zelenskyy signs pacts with France and Germany
PARIS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement with France hours after he officialized a similar one with Germany. The agreements send a strong signal of long-term backing as Kyiv works to shore up Western support nearly two years after Russia launched its full-scale war.
Mr. Zelenskyy was greeted in Paris at the Elysee presidential palace by President Emmanuel Macron. The agreement provides an additional package worth 3 billion euros in military aid this year, the largest annual amount France has given to Ukraine since the war began.
“The outcome of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will be decisive for our interests, our values, our security and our model of society,” Mr. Macron said.
”Yes, we must further invest” to support Ukraine “at a greater scale and in the long term,” he added.
Mr. Macron said he would travel to Ukraine by mid-March.
Mr. Zelenskyy’s stop in France comes after he met earlier in the day in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said Berlin was providing another 1.1 billioneuro ($1.2 billion) package of military aid, including howitzers, artillery ammunition and two more airdefense systems.
Ukraine signed last month its first such bilateral agreement with the U.K.
“These three agreements ... give me confidence as president that we are not alone,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in Paris.
“It’s very important that we have specific agreements with all our partners. But I would like to emphasize that this is not an alternative to the United States, we are all together,” he said.
Mr. Zelenskyy earlier said more deals were in the works with other countries. “Ukraine has never yet had more valuable and stronger documents,” he said.
The security agreements appear aimed primarily at sending a message of long-term solidarity as Ukraine has gone back on the defensive in the war, hindered by low ammunition supplies and a shortage of personnel.
“Two years after the beginning of this terrible war, we are sending a crystal-clear message today to the Russian president: we will not ease off in our support for Ukraine,” Mr. Scholz said. He put his country’s deliveries and pledges of military aid so far at a total 28 billion euros.
Mr. Macron said the agreements also show Europe’s commitments amid concerns that former President Donald Trump might return to the White House and allow Russia to expand its aggression on the continent.
“Europe’s future cannot depend on the American election,” Mr. Macron said. “This is my idea of sovereignty and strategic autonomy.”
Both the French and the German agreements, valid for 10 years, underscore Paris and Berlin’s intention to provide “long-term” military support to Ukrainian security. They say Ukraine and its partners “will work together on ensuring a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring future aggression in the future.”
In case of future Russian aggression, Germany, like France, “would provide Ukraine as appropriate, with swift and sustained security assistance” and modern military equipment as needed, as well as seeking agreement on imposing “economic and other costs on Russia,” the agreements state.