To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Handout via Reuters Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with his wife Olena, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Icelandic Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visit a makeshift memorial place displaying Ukrainian flags with the names of fallen service members, at the Independence Square, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv on Monday.
By David L. Stern and Ellen Francis / The Washington Post
12:53 JST, February 25, 2025
KYIV – Leaders from across Europe and Canada assembled in Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion as uncertainty grows over U.S. support for Ukraine.
In the absence of U.S. representatives, more than a dozen Western leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and leaders of Baltic and Nordic nations, gathered in a show of support.
The shadow of President Donald Trump loomed over the summit, as European officials rushed to pledge billions of dollars in financial and military assistance, seeking to strengthen Kyiv’s position at the outset of U.S. negotiations with Russia over halting the conflict.
E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has sought to rally European countries to put together additional military aid for Ukraine for this year. The efforts have taken on extra urgency after what appears to be a shift in U.S. support for Kyiv as Trump’s administration held initial talks with Russia, ending Moscow’s diplomatic isolation.
“We must speed up the immediate delivery of weapons and ammunition,” von der Leyen, head of the European Union’s executive branch, said in a statement as she arrived in the Ukrainian capital. “And this will be at the heart of our work in the coming weeks.”
She said the bloc would deliver $3.6 billion of preapproved aid in March, while Spain announced more than $1 billion in military assistance for 2025. The aid from Spain comes on top of $1 billion it provided in 2024 through a bilateral security and defense agreement.
Trump’s barbed exchanges with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he blasted as a “dictator,” in recent days have also heightened worries about future U.S. backing.
Monday’s commemorations in Kyiv come at a dizzying moment for Europe, as Trump moves the United States away from wariness toward Russia, and three years of support for Ukraine, creating concerns about shifting American alliances.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is set to meet with Trump this week, addressed the gathering by video and pledged more than $5 billion in military aid this year as well as a new package of sanctions on Russia.
“Russia does not hold all the cards in this war,” he said, adding that “we must increase the pressure even further.”
European foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday, with the E.U. aid package still under discussion. Some officials have floated a price tag of more than $20 billion.
The goal of the plan is to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition, air defenses, drones and other weapons through cash or equipment provided by European allies.
“Today around the table, I heard a broad support for the initiative,” Kallas said at a news conference. “It’s important to send also the signal that we are able to do this.” She said details should be decided when European leaders convene an emergency summit next week, as they seek to influence the direct talks from which they have been excluded.
While Europe has supplied more humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine since 2022 by some accounts, Kyiv relied heavily on U.S. military aid during the war. European weapons stocks do not match the scale of the Pentagon’s, and some supplies are running dry after years of funneling equipment to Kyiv.
In announcing Spain’s military aid, Sánchez said that the “security and future of all Europeans” were at stake and that “diplomacy alone will not be enough.”
As he prepared to receive the European leaders in Kyiv, Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Monday that “three years after the start of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s three-day ‘special military operation,’ Ukraine is alive, fighting, and our country has more friends in the world than ever before.”
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, said Monday that Kyiv and Washington were “in the final stages of negotiations” of an agreement that would grant the United States extensive access to Ukraine’s rare minerals. She said on X that the talks had been “very constructive, with nearly all key details finalized.”
At a news conference the previous day, Zelensky had pushed back on the initial terms of the deal, arguing that it miscalculated the amount of money sent to Ukraine and unilaterally changed past grants into loans. He has also insisted that any agreement must contain security guarantees, to protect Ukraine from any future Russian attacks in the event of a negotiated settlement to the war.
On Monday, two improvised projectiles were thrown at the facade of the Russian Consulate in the southern French port of Marseille, authorities said. There were no casualties. Russian officials demanded a full investigation into the incident, which they called a terrorist attack.
