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00:00Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has traveled to Rammstein Air Base in Germany this Friday
00:04as part of his ongoing mission to convince Western allies to allow Kyiv to carry out
00:09long-range strikes into Russia. In recent weeks, Moscow has launched hundreds of drone and missile
00:14attacks across Ukrainian territory, sharply underscoring what Kyiv has described as an
00:19urgent need for greater air defense capabilities. Here's Zelensky speaking a short while ago in
00:24Germany.
00:54For more on that visit by the Ukrainian President, we can cross now to Nick Holdsworth, our correspondent in Berlin.
01:05Nick, what exactly was Volodymyr Zelensky's objective in traveling to Rammstein in Germany today?
01:13Well, it's significant because this is the first time that the Ukrainian President has come to this
01:17Ukrainian defense contact group, which is a regular series of meetings held between the
01:23Western allies and Ukraine in Rammstein, southwest of Frankfurt in Germany. It's a big air base down
01:29there. And his personal appearance comes just a week ahead of his coming up visit to Washington,
01:36where he's going to be presenting a peace plan to President Biden, arguing that now is the time to
01:43press further for peace. So today was about urging the West to up the game and to allow Ukraine to
01:51finally use longer range defensive missiles to strike deep within Russian territory at those
01:59bases, military bases, air bases from which Russia is firing long range weapons into Ukraine. We've
02:05had a couple of pretty nasty attacks just in the last few days, with more than 50 young members of
02:12a military training academy killed and hundreds injured and also 50 civilians injured in an attack
02:18in eastern Ukraine just today from Russian ballistic missile attacks. So it's really
02:25important that Zelensky is showing his face coming and urging the West finally to act. He says that
02:32all of the Russian red lines have already been crossed. The Ukrainians have made this incursion
02:39into Kursk. Now is the time to support Ukraine ahead of what could be a very bleak winter for
02:44the country.