(Al Jazeera Media Network) Ukraine’s European allies pledged increased levels of military aid to Ukraine this year, making up for a United States aid freeze, as Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his ambition to absorb all of Ukraine into the Russian Federation.
“At this moment, the Europeans and the Canadians have pledged, for this year, $35 billion in military support to Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte ahead of the alliance’s annual summit, which took place June 24-25 in The Hague.
“Last year, it was just over $50 billion for the full year. Now, before we reach half year, it is already at $35 billion. And there are even others saying it’s already close to $40 billion,” he added.
The increase in European aid partly made up for the absence of any military aid offers so far from the Trump administration.
In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered to buy the US Patriot air defence systems Ukraine needs to fend off daily missile and drone attacks.
The Trump administration made its first sale of weapons to Ukraine the following month, but only of F-16 aircraft parts.
At The Hague this week, Zelenskyy said he discussed those Patriot systems with Trump. At a news conference on Wednesday, Trump said: “We’re going to see if we can make some available,” referring to interceptors for existing Patriot systems in Ukraine. “They’re very hard to get. We need them too, and we’ve been supplying them to Israel,” he said.
Russia has made a ceasefire conditional on Ukraine’s allies stopping the flow of weapons to it and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that condition on Saturday.
On June 20, Vladimir Putin revealed that his ambition to annex all of Ukraine had not abated.
“I have said many times that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one nation, in fact. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” he said at a media conference to mark the opening of the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum on June 20.
“But you know we have an old parable, an old rule: wherever a Russian soldier steps, it is ours.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the next day: “Wherever a Russian soldier steps, he brings only death, destruction, and devastation.”
In a post on the Telegram messaging platform on June 21, Zelenskyy wrote that Putin had “spoken completely openly”.
“Yes, he wants all of Ukraine,” he said. “He is also speaking about Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, the Caucasus, countries like Kazakhstan.”
German army planners agreed about Putin’s expansionism, deeming Russia an “existential threat” in a new strategy paper 18 months in the making, leaked to Der Spiegel news magazine last week.
Moscow was preparing its military leadership and defence industries “specifically to meet the requirements for a large-scale conflict against NATO by the end of this decade,” the paper said.
“We in Germany ignored the warnings of our Baltic neighbours about Russia for too long. We have recognized this mistake,” said German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday, highlighting the reason for an about-turn from his two predecessors’ refusal to spend more on defence.
“There is no going back from this realization. We cannot expect the world around us to return to calmer times in the near future,” he added.
Germany, along with other European NATO allies, agreed on Wednesday to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2035.
It was a sign of the increasingly common threat perception from Russia, but also a big win for Trump, who had demanded that level of spending shortly after winning re-election as US president last year.
Of that, 1.5 percent is for military-related spending such as dual-purpose infrastructure, emergency healthcare, cybersecurity and civic resilience.
Even Trump, who has previously expressed admiration for Putin, seemed to be souring on him.
“I consider him a person that’s, I think, been misguided,” he said after a moment’s thought at his NATO news conference. “I’m very surprised actually. I thought we would have had that settled easy,” referring to the conflict in Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin really has to end that war,” he said.
In the early weeks of his administration, Trump appeared to think it was up to Ukraine to end the war.
Putin continued his ground war during the week of the NATO summit, launching approximately 200 assaults each day, according to Ukraine’s General Staff – a high average.
Ukraine, itself, was fighting 695,000 Russian troops on its territory, said Zelenskyy on Saturday, with another 52,000 attempting to create a new front in Sumy, northeast Ukraine.
“This week they advanced 200 metres towards Sumy, and we pushed them back 200–400 metres,” he said, a battle description typical of the stagnation Russian troops face along the thousand-kilometre front.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/6/27/putin-confirms-he-wants-all-of-ukraine-as-europe-steps-up-military-aid
