Pentagon leaders head to Germany for talks on Ukraine military aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top U.S. military leaders will be in Germany to discuss Ukraine's wartime needs as Russia has conducted one of its deadliest airstrikes in the conflict and Ukraine presses its offensive in Russia's Kursk region.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will host a meeting Friday at Ramstein Air Force Base of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, made up of military leaders from more than 50 nations that have regularly provided funding and weapon systems to bolster Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.

The group's priorities include bolstering Ukraine’s air defenses and “energizing of the defense industrial bases” of allies to ensure long-term support for Kyiv, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said in a statement Thursday.

“As Secretary Austin has said, Ukraine matters to U.S. and international security,” the statement said.

Ukraine's allies face renewed calls from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for additional air defenses and loosened restrictions on how far into Russia Ukraine can fire American-provided munitions. He has long pushed allies to go further to support Ukraine's effort to fend off Russia.

The meeting comes after Russia used two ballistic missiles to target a military academy and nearby hospital this week in Ukraine, killing more than 50 people and wounding over 270 others, in one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

“Air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere,” Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel this week. “Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now."

So far, the Biden administration has kept relatively strict control over how the missiles it provides Ukraine can be used. Ukraine can defensively fire at Russian targets along the border, but the U.S. prohibits their use deeper into Russia, out of concern that such a strike would further escalate the war.

There has been no change in the policy on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied weapons, Ryder told reporters Tuesday.

That the group of military leaders from Ukraine's allies has continued to meet and agree to send weapons is extraordinary, however. Global pressure on weapons stockpiles has increased and contributors such as the U.S. face competing demands for that aid to bolster security in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

Since 2022, the member nations together have provided about $106 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. The U.S. has provided more than $56 billion of that total.

The group's meeting also comes as Zelenskyy has signaled a major reshuffling of his cabinet-level leaders. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, one of Ukraine’s most recognizable faces on the international stage, resigned Wednesday before the expected reorganization.

Ukraine also has made a fundamental shift in its tactics in the war, seizing Russian territory in the Kursk region during an offensive that began a few weeks ago. Ukraine's military is trying to maintain control of that land, while Russian President Vladimir Putin pushes his forces deeper into eastern Ukraine. Both sides are prepared for difficult fighting during the winter.

Both sides have become entrenched over the two previous winters, and Ukrainians have endured brutal conditions without electricity or heat as Russia has targeted its power grid.