Zelenskiy to attend Ramstein meeting, push for long-range missiles, Spiegel says

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BERLIN (Reuters) -Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will take part in a meeting on Friday of the Ramstein group of nations which supplies arms to Ukraine, German magazine Spiegel reported.

Zelenskiy is expected to push for more weapons deliveries, in particular long-range missiles and more air defences, during the gathering of defence ministers at the sprawling U.S. air base Ramstein in western Germany, Spiegel said on Thursday.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United States gathered like-minded nations at Ramstein, establishing a group of now some 50 nations that meet regularly to match Kyiv’s arms requests with pledges of donors.

Zelenskiy has called on allies to help with air defences and lift restrictions that ban Kyiv from using donated weapons for long-range strikes into Russia.

Ukraine has long urged partners to allow it to fire Western weapons at targets far into enemy territory, and those calls have grown louder as Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian energy installations, other infrastructure and residential buildings intensify.

The Ramstein meeting on Friday comes only about a week after one of the biggest waves of Russian air attacks on Ukraine and amid fears that Western military aid might stall more than two years into the war.

Trying to dispel such concerns, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday Berlin would not slacken in its help for Ukraine.

“Germany’s support for Ukraine will not cease. We have made provisions, struck (defence) deals and secured the funding in good time so that Ukraine can continue to fully rely on us in future,” Scholz said.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Editing by Miranda Murray and Gareth Jones)