Zelenskyy to visit Germany on 28 May
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is likely to visit Germany this Wednesday, 28 May.
Source: Spiegel, as reported by European Pravda
Details: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to have a face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy to discuss possible steps for further technical negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
Further military support for Ukraine is also likely to be on the agenda.
Merz also intends to brief the Ukrainian president on plans for a new package of EU sanctions against Russia to increase pressure on Moscow to engage in serious negotiations.
Zelenskyy is also expected to meet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin.
Background:
On Saturday 11 May, the leaders of the coalition of the willing met in Kyiv, where they announced plans to ramp up sanctions against Russia if a truce is not implemented.
While in Kyiv, Merz promised to continue providing military support for Ukraine, stressing that there would be close coordination with European partners and the United States.
On 26 May, he said that Germany, France, the UK and the US have lifted all restrictions on Ukraine regarding the range of strikes inside Russia.
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Bloomberg
19 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Europe Mulls Speeding Up Trade Retaliation Against the US
Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg's daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union. The EU is signaling it may accelerate retaliatory measures against the US if President Donald Trump follows through on his tariff threats, including a new 50% levy on steel and aluminum imports. The Commission said the tariff hike — from an originally planned 25% — is jeopardizing ongoing efforts to reach an agreement. A commission spokesperson said yesterday that if no solution is reached, both existing and potentially additional EU counter-measures will kick in on July 14 — or even before if the need arises. The EU's trade czar Maros Sefcovic will meet with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer tomorrow in Paris.

Business Insider
24 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Europe might be increasing its defense spending, but it's moving way too slowly to be ready for Russia, says Saab CEO
Saab's CEO Micael Johansson said that while Europe's leaders have announced huge defense spending hikes, the continent's processes are likely too slow to combat Russia. "Now, we want to spend like 3.5% to 5% of GDP on defense. But then, when you start getting into the normal processes in terms of, okay, defense forces have to decide what to spend the money on, and then it has to be acquired by someone," Johansson told Business Insider on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue. "The process is much too long still. It takes a long time before it gets into industry," he said, adding that he was worried about the gap. As an example, Johansson said Sweden's recent boost in defense spending to 3.5% of GDP would take military authorities "six months roughly" to decide what to spend the funds on. And that's before acquisition and matériel officials come into the mix, he said. "And so we're still looking at a couple of years before you actually get going, which is not good enough, I think, in times of war. Which is tragic," Johansson said, who was elected president of the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe last month. At the same time, the CEO raised concerns about Russia's warfooting manufacturing capability, estimating that Moscow was making up about five times as many artillery shells as all of Europe yearly. "Europe has to take its own responsibility, so we need to have integrated our missile defense systems, the collaborative combat aircraft, we need to have space technology, we need to have hubs where we can do ammunition manufacturing," he said. At the Dialogue, which ran from Friday to Sunday, Germany's defense chief Gen. Carsten Breuer raised a similar issue for his country. "I think in Germany we are a facing a situation, or at least we faced a situation, where we had processes over processes and processes, and all those processes were developed not to spend any money," Breuer said at a panel on Saturday. "Because we had enough time, but we did not have the money." Breuer said that if German officials deemed a process was moving too quickly, they would "then develop an additional process to slow it down." European military officials have warned that their nations must be ready for a possible conflict with Russia by 2029, when they estimate that Moscow would be strong enough to launch an attack on the Baltic states. Anxieties on the continent have been compounded by the second Trump administration's signaled reluctance to continue supporting regional defense in areas where European states are falling short. President Donald Trump has called for NATO's European members to boost defense spending to 5% of their GDP. Some, such as Germany, have signaled an openness to such an eventual arrangement. Saab, which manufactures the Gripen fighter jet that's geared toward fighting Russian threats, has seen a rapid surge in demand since the war in Ukraine began in 2022. The Nordics' biggest defense manufacturer reported 2024 annual sales of 63.75 billion Swedish krona, or about $6.6 billion. By comparison, annual revenue in 2021 was 39.15 billion krona.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
One killed, several injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine, officials say
(Reuters) -Russia's overnight attacks killed one person in Ukraine's northeastern region of Kharkiv and injured several more in the northern city of Chernihiv, regional Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. A private enterprise was hit in the small town of Balakliia in the Kharkiv region that borders Russia, killing one employee and injuring several others, Vitali Karabanov, the head of the town's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. "A massive UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack on the town," Karabanov said, without providing details of the scale. The attacks came hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Turkey for peace talks where Moscow said it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender. Falling drones on streets and residential buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv sparked several fires, including at residential houses, Dmytro Bryzhynskyi, the head of the city's military administration, said on Telegram. Four people were hospitalised, Bryzhynskyi said. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said another 20 people, including eight children, received medical assistance at the site. The service posted photos on its Telegram account showing firefighters battling blazes in the dark and medics attending to a group of children. In the southern port city of Odesa, Russian overnight air attacks damaged residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, but there were no injuries, Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov wrote on Telegram. The full scale of the overnight Russian attack on Ukraine was not immediately known. There was no immediate comment from Moscow and Reuters could not independently verify the Ukrainian reports. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.