The heads of the two countries, Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met for about three hours at the Elysee Palace of the President of France. The meeting was kept secret until shortly before Zelenskyy arrived in Paris from Germany on a French government plane, extending his European tour with several stops in Rome, the Vatican and Berlin.
Military aid was the first item on the agenda, according to the Associated Press. Macron’s office said France would supply dozens of light tanks and armored vehicles “in the coming weeks”, without giving specific numbers. It was also promised to provide Kiev with more air defense systems, but details of this were also not disclosed. Macron’s office said France intended to train around 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers in his country this year and nearly 4,000 more in Poland “as part of a wider European effort”.
In a statement, France described its support for Ukraine as “unwavering” and promised that its political, economic, humanitarian and military assistance would continue “as long as necessary”. Paris supplied Kiev with a large number of weapons in fifteen months, including air defense systems, light tanks, howitzers, other weapons and equipment, and fuel.
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p class=””>France sent a plane to pick up Zelenskyy from Germany, where he met Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier on Sunday. In Berlin, Zelenskyy said his goal would be “the liberation of Russian-occupied territories within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, not an attack on Russian territory.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has previously cited never-before-seen documents from a series of US intelligence leaks suggesting that Zelenskyy was considering trying to seize territory in Russia for possible use as a bargaining chip in the talks. of peace. At the same time, the publication notes, he has thus come into disagreement with Western governments, who insist that the weapons they supply should not be used to attack targets in Russia.
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