Zelenskyy will arrive in Germany from Italy, where he met Italian officials and Pope Francis on Saturday. Italian leaders pledged to continue significant military and financial assistance to Ukraine and reaffirmed their support for its EU candidacy.
The last time the Ukrainian leader traveled to Germany to attend the Munich security conference was last February, shortly before the start of the war.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, was criticized at the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine for ‘an indecisive reaction’, but has since become one of the biggest providers of financial and military aid to Ukraine, ahead of other European powers such as France.
On Saturday, Germany announced 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion) in military aid to Ukraine, the largest since the Russian invasion, and vowed to continue supporting Kiev for as long as needed. .
The country also hosted around one million Ukrainian refugees.
According to the deputy director of the German Council for Foreign Policy, Christian Molling, Zelenskyy will probably want to ask Chancellor Olaf Scholz directly how he sees the end of the war. “Does Germany want a Ukrainian victory or is that enough to end the war? It will be important for Zelenskyy to hear directly from the Chancellor what he thinks,” said Molling.
Malling said Ukraine is also aware of the need to bolster support from its financial allies as these countries grapple with a cost-of-living crisis at home.
“Ukraine needs financial help to repay its debt to avoid bankruptcy, and Germany plays an important role here,” he said. “Ukraine sees other topics starting to come forward in Germany.”
A January poll by research firm Ipsos showed that the proportion of Germans who think their country cannot afford to provide financial aid to Ukraine due to the current economic crisis has risen by 9 percentage points to reach 56%. This poll also showed a decrease in the level of German support for accepting new refugees from Ukraine and providing military assistance to Kiev.
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