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00:00Well, moments ago, the U.S. government announced $250 million in new security assistance for
00:06Ukraine.
00:07This at an aid meeting in Germany's Rammstein Air Base, where Ukraine's President Volodymyr
00:12Zelensky made a rare appearance.
00:15It comes at a pivotal moment in the war against Russia.
00:18Ukraine recently began its first offensive operations while facing a significant threat
00:22back in the Donbas region.
00:28For more, we can speak to our correspondent, Gulliver Cragg, standing by.
00:31Hello to you, Gulliver.
00:32Tell us a little bit more about what Volodymyr Zelensky was hoping to get out of this trip.
00:37Well, I think he's hoping to give it a sort of a boost.
00:41I think the word he used was adrenaline.
00:43By actually showing up in person, the Ukrainians want three things, mainly.
00:49More weapons, of course, particularly air defense systems and long-range missiles.
00:54They also, though, want the weapons that have been promised to be delivered on time.
00:57He said that in his remarks that were broadcast.
01:00He also said that he would be speaking to the delegates off the record.
01:04Maybe that part is more important.
01:05But certainly, although he was reading out remarks in English from a piece of paper,
01:11he was still pretty, you know, insistent, Volodymyr Zelensky, about the need for promises
01:16to be kept on time.
01:17The Ukrainians don't like to give details about which countries aren't delivering what
01:21they promised or what exactly has not been delivered.
01:24But there is, you know, widespread understanding that a lot of things are delivered late.
01:29In February this year, the defense minister, Rustem Omurov, said as much as half of the
01:34military equipment that is promised to Ukraine ends up being delivered with significant delays
01:38and some of it without all of the equipment that it needs.
01:41In particular, the F-16 planes that Ukraine has recently received apparently don't have
01:46the right missiles that they need and other important parts in order to be able to use
01:51them to their full capacity.
01:53So that's the sort of second aspect that Volodymyr Zelensky is insisting on.
01:58Please keep your promises and keep them on time.
02:00He's very much talking about how urgent everything is.
02:05And the other thing, of course, that he is going to be insisting on very much, as all
02:09the Ukrainian leaders have been talking about for the past few weeks, is they want permission
02:13to use longer range weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
02:16The lack of understanding in Ukraine is only growing with every week that goes about what
02:23the Western allies mean when they talk about fear of escalation and of NATO countries'
02:27implication into the conflict.
02:29They feel that they proved with their incursion into Kursk region in Russia that Putin's supposed
02:34red lines are not really red lines at all.
02:36Vladimir Putin, in the eyes of the Ukrainians, is doing all he can, using all the force at
02:40his disposal in his campaign against Ukraine.
02:43And whether or not the Ukrainians are allowed to use weapons that have a range limit of
02:47100 kilometers or 300 kilometers, that's not going to make a difference in terms of
02:52escalation or, you know, increased Russian wrath against the West.
02:57Though, there was another reason that was given yesterday by Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon
03:01spokeswoman, as to why the Americans don't want the Ukrainians to use these long range
03:06ATACOM missiles to strike targets further inside Russia.
03:10And that, according to her, is that the Americans simply don't have that many of them and they
03:13aren't going to be able to keep resupplying Ukraine with them.
03:17And they think that the Ukrainians have more need for them for striking targets in Crimea
03:22and other occupied parts of Ukraine.
03:24Yeah.
03:25And, Golvar, is a concern on the Ukrainian side about whether, whether this aid will
03:32dry up?
03:34Yeah, they're certainly worried.
03:36I don't know if they'd say whether it will dry up, but worried that it's not coming in
03:40fast enough and that it's sort of diminishing.
03:43The Germans are talking about cutting the amount of money that they spend on aid to
03:48Ukraine.
03:49What they've been saying publicly, the Ukrainians, is that they feel that the internal political
03:53situation, particularly in very important allied countries like the United States and
03:58France, has taken precedence over the Ukrainian situation.
04:03There's also Israel.
04:05They want their allies to sort of get their eyes back on Ukraine and really be focused
04:11on it.
04:12They're very worried about the U.S. elections and what's going to happen after that.
04:15They want to get as much help as they can before that.
04:18But it's also just because the situation is getting worse in Ukraine by the day.
04:22The Russians are really advancing rapidly in Donbass.
04:25Their ability to continue striking targets far from the front line pretty much every
04:29single night means that the Russians have got more capacity to produce and acquire missiles
04:33than the Ukrainians thought they had.
04:35That's a very worrying development.
04:37We've seen with the recent strikes on Lviv that even very major Ukrainian cities are
04:41not fully protected by air defences.