Zelensky appeals for weapons at Ukraine aid meet in Germany • FRANCE 24 English

well moments ago the US government announced $250 million in new security assistance for Ukraine this at an aid meeting in Germany's uh at its Ramstein Airbase where Ukraine's President Vladimir zalinsky made a rare appearance it comes at a pivotal moment in the war against Russia Ukraine recently began its first offensive operations while facing a significant threat back in its stas region for more we can speak to our correspondent CAG standing by hello to you Gul tell us a little bit more about what Vladimir zinsky was hoping to get out of this trip well I think he's hoping to give it a sort of a boost I think the word he used was adrenaline by actually showing up in person the ukrainians um want three things mainly more weapons of course particularly air defense systems and long range missiles um they also though want the weapons that have been promised to be delivered on time he said that in his remarks that were broadcast he also said that he would be speaking to the delegates off the Record maybe that part is more important but certainly although he was reading out uh remarks in English from a piece of paper he was still pretty you know um insistent vadir zinski about the need for promises to be kept on time the ukrainians don't like to give details about which countries aren't delivering what they promised or what exactly has not been delivered but there is um you know widespread understanding that a lot of things are delivered late in February this year the defense minister Rus said as much as half of uh the military equipment that is promised to Ukraine ends up being delivered with significant delays and some of it without all of the equipment that it needs in particular the F-16 planes that Ukraine has recently received apparently don't have the right missiles that they need um and other um important parts in order to be able to use them to their full capacity so that's the sort of second aspect that vomir zalinski is insisting on please keep your promises and keep them on time he's very much talking about how urgent everything um is and um and the other thing of course that he is um going to be insisting on very much as all the Ukrainian leaders have been talking about for the past few weeks is they want permission to use longer range weapons to strike targets inside Russia the lack of understanding in Ukraine is only growing with every week that goes about what the Western allies mean when they talk about fear of escalation and of NATO countries implication into the conflict they feel that they prove proved with their incursion into kusk region in Russia that Putin's supposed red lines are not really red lines at all Vladimir Putin in the eyes of the ukrainians is doing all he can using all the force at his disposal in his campaign against Ukraine and whether or not the ukrainians are allowed to use weapons that have a range limit of 100 kilm or 300 km that's not going to make a difference in terms of escalation um or you know increased Russian rth against the the West though there was another reason that was given Yesterday by Sabrina Singh the Pentagon spoke to woman as to why the Americans don't want to the ukrainians to use these longrange atacam missiles to strike targets further inside Russia and that according to her is that the Americans simply don't have that many of them and they aren't going to be able to keep resupplying Ukraine with them and they think that the ukrainians um have more need for them for striking Targets in Crimea and other occupied parts of Ukraine yeah and Gul is a concern on the Ukrainian side um about whether whether this Aid will dry up yeah they're certainly worried I don't know if they'd say whether it will dry up but the worried that it's not coming in fast enough and that it's sort of diminishing the Germans are talking about cutting the amount of money that they spend on Aid to Ukraine what they've been saying publicly the ukrainians is that they feel that the internal political situation particularly in very important Allied countries like the United States and France has taken precedence over um the Ukrainian situation there's also Israel they want their allies to sort of get their eyes back on uh Ukraine and really be focused on it of course they're very worried about the US elections and what's going to happen after that they want to get as much help as they can before that but it's also just because the situation is getting worse in Ukraine by the day the Russians are really advancing rapidly in donbass their ability to continue striking targets far from the front line pretty much every single night means that the Russians have got more capacity to produce and acquire missiles than the ukrainians thought they had that's a very worrying development we've seen with the recent strikes on Lviv that even very major Ukrainian cities are not fully protected by air defenses all right