Merz says Germany, Ukraine to jointly produce long-range weapons
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Berlin will help Kyiv develop new long-range weapons that can hit targets in Russian territory, AFP reported.
“Our defence ministers will sign a memorandum of understanding today regarding the procurement of Ukrainian-made long-range weapons systems,” said Merz, without naming the manufacturers involved.
“There will be no range restrictions, allowing Ukraine to fully defend itself, even against military targets outside its own territory,” he told a joint press conference.
The production of long-range weapons “can take place both in Ukraine and here in Germany,” he said. “We will not provide any further details until further notice.”
Merz hailed the project as “the beginning of a new form of military-industrial cooperation between our countries that has great potential”.
Key events
Merz says Germany will ‘do everything’ to prevent Nord Stream restart
Germany will “do everything” to make sure the damaged Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia will not resume deliveries of natural gas to Europe, chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday.
“We will continue to increase the pressure on Russia,” Merz said at a press conference with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin. He added:
We will do everything in this context to ensure that Nord Stream 2 cannot be put back into operation.
The Nord Stream 2 gas link connecting Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea was damaged in September 2022 by huge underwater explosions, said to be an act of sabotage. The explosions destroyed one of the two pipes of Nord Stream 2 and both branches of its controversial sister pipeline, Nord Stream 1.
While Nord Stream 2 never went into operation, Nord Stream 1 for years shipped cheap Russian gas to Europe via Germany.
Critics have argued the existence of the pipeline left Germany and the rest of Europe over reliant on fossil fuel deliveries from Moscow.
German and British media have recently reported that Washington and Moscow had discussed the idea of reviving the Nord Stream 2 project during talks on ending the war in Ukraine, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Senior political figures in Merz’s own party had also expressed tentative support for restarting gas deliveries via the pipeline from Russia before the chancellor definitively ruled out the possibility.
European Commission president chief Ursula von der Leyen said earlier this month the bloc was working on a new set of sanctions that would include measures against Nord Stream 1 and 2, pre-empting a restart.
Explaining the measures, EU spokesperson Paula Pinho said, “the idea is to dissuade any interest, and notably interest from investors, in pursuing any activity on Nord Stream, also in the future”.
Istanbul could be a venue for the next round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
Merz says Germany, Ukraine to jointly produce long-range weapons
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Berlin will help Kyiv develop new long-range weapons that can hit targets in Russian territory, AFP reported.
“Our defence ministers will sign a memorandum of understanding today regarding the procurement of Ukrainian-made long-range weapons systems,” said Merz, without naming the manufacturers involved.
“There will be no range restrictions, allowing Ukraine to fully defend itself, even against military targets outside its own territory,” he told a joint press conference.
The production of long-range weapons “can take place both in Ukraine and here in Germany,” he said. “We will not provide any further details until further notice.”
Merz hailed the project as “the beginning of a new form of military-industrial cooperation between our countries that has great potential”.
Zelenskyy also said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s defence minister, who was the leader of Ukraine’s Istanbul negotiating team, had a call with the head of Russia’s team to those talks.
He is speaking at a joint news conference in Berlin with German chancellor Merz.
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine not being invited to the upcoming Nato summit would mean a victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin over the alliance.
Zelenskyy had said on Tuesday that Nato chief Mark Rutte wanted Ukraine to attend the summit.
However, it was still not clear whether Kyiv would be invited.
Zelenskyy says Ukraine reaches defence sector accords with Germany
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Ukraine and Germany had reached new agreements on defence sector investments.
Zelenskyy, who was speaking in Berlin alongside German chancellor Friedrich Merz, did not give further details.
Kyiv has increasingly sought money from its allies to fund its own burgeoning defence industry.
Ukrainian president Volydymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine and Germany have new agreements on defence sector investments.
More details soon …
“We Europeans are ready to support technical talks between Ukraine and Russia,” German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said at a joint press conference in Berlin with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
More details to follow …
Ukraine protests to IAEA over Russia building power lines to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Ukraine has protested to the international atomic energy watchdog about reports that Russia is building power lines to connect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to its own grid, a Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.
Yuriy Vitrenko, Ukraine’s representative to international bodies in Vienna, told Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform that Kyiv sees any attempt by Russia to connect the occupied plant to its grid as a gross violation of international law and Ukrainian sovereignty.
There is now a live feed embedded at the top of this page which will stream Zelenskyy and Merz’s press conference in Berlin. You may have to refresh the page to access it.
Here are some images coming in via the newswires of Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelenskyy in Berlin today:
Belarus scales back planned military drills with Russia
Belarus will scale back military drills with Russia planned for September, cutting the number of soldiers taking part and moving them away from the western border, Minsk said on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Belarus is a key Russian ally and allowed its territory to be used as a staging post for Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv, as well as Poland and the Baltic states, have repeatedly expressed alarm about possible military buildups in the country.
“We have decided to reduce the parameters of the ‘Zapad-2025’ exercise and to move its main manoeuvres deep into the territory of the Republic of Belarus, away from the western borders,” defence minister Viktor Khrenin said in a statement posted on Wednesday on the ministry’s Telegram channel.
“The number of troops participating in the drills will be cut almost by half,” Gen Valery Revenko, the head of the ministry’s department for international cooperation said at a security forum in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
Russian state media reported about 13,000 soldiers were originally to take part in the drills.
Khrenin said the move was “to demonstrate to our allies and partners around the world the truly peace-loving position of the Republic of Belarus”.
The Zapad military drills usually involve tens of thousands of troops in a show of force close to Belarus’s western border with EU and Nato members.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month warned Russia was “preparing something” in Belarus “using military drills as cover”. “That’s usually how they start a new attack,” he said.
About 200,000 troops participated in the 2021 edition of Zapad, staged just months before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
The Kremlin believes that US president Donald Trump was not fully informed about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
He was commenting on remarks by Trump that Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv.
Pope Leo XIV appealed on Wednesday for an end to the war in Ukraine, reports Reuters.
During his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, the pontiff decried new attacks against civilians and infrastructure in Ukraine in the days since Russia launched the biggest aerial attack of the three-year war.
“I renew with vigour my appeal to stop the war and to support every initiative of dialogue and peace,” said the pope.
The pope’s appeal, made in Italian, came at the end of his audience, when he added some brief comments to his prepared text, reports Reuters.
Russia masses more than 50,000 troops for offensive on north-eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy says
Russia has massed more than 50,000 troops, including some of its best forces, near Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region, but Kyiv has taken steps to prevent them from conducting a large-scale offensive, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, according to Reuters.
The buildup comes as Russia appears to be gearing up for a summer offensive in Ukraine while Kyiv waits for Moscow to present a memorandum laying out its conditions to proceed with ceasefire talks.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region where Ukraine previously seized and held a pocket of land for months, before being almost fully pushed out last month, although it says it still holds some small areas there.
“Their largest, strongest forces are currently on the Kursk front,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Tuesday. “To push our troops out of the Kursk region and to prepare offensive actions against the Sumy region.”
Vladimir Putin has said he wants a “buffer zone” along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Zelenskyy said he believed Russia wants to carve out an area of Ukrainian territory about 10km (6 miles) deep.
Russia has captured at least four border villages in the region recently, and has been creeping slowly forwards over the past several weeks on parts of the frontline in eastern Ukraine near the city of Kostiantynivka. However, the Ukrainian leader said that the Russians had been pushed back in that area by 4km (2.5 miles) over two days, reports Reuters.
Zelenskyy told reporters in a briefing that his government was ready for further peace talks in any format. He said he expected the next round to be at a technical level, but said he would be ready for a three-way meeting with US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
He said he did not want the United States to leave the Ukraine peace process, as Washington has threatened to do if progress is not made.
