U.S. announces more Ukraine aid as Zelenskyy calls for NATO to deploy troops to “force Russia into peace”

Ramstein Air Base, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Donald Trump’s return to the White House would open “a new chapter” and reiterated a call for Western allies to send troops to help “force Russia to peace.” He made the plea as the Biden administration announced what will likely be its last major military aid package for Ukraine — a promise of weapons and other support worth $500 million.

Zelenskyy spoke at a meeting of about 50 allies at the American military’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the last such gathering before Trump takes office on January 20. His imminent return to the White House has cast doubt on future American support for Ukraine’s war effort, given previous favorable remarks about Russia’s authoritarian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s vow to quickly end the war nearly three years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.

While he’s offered no clear indication as to how he intends to achieve that, many in Ukraine and across Europe are concerned Trump could make good on the promise by withholding aid to Ukraine and pushing Zelenskyy to negotiate a truce that lets Russia maintain control over some of the vast territory is has occupied in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“It’s clear that a new chapter starts for Europe and the entire world — just 11 days from now, a time when we have to cooperate even more, rely on one another even more, and achieve even greater results together,” said Zelenskyy, adding that he saw it “as a time of opportunities.”

As the grinding war nears the three-year mark, which it will hit on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy repeated a call for Western allies to send troops to help Ukraine.

“Our goal is to find as many instruments as possible to force Russia into peace,” he told the meeting. “I believe that such deployment of partners’ contingents is one of the best instruments.”

The United States under President Joe Biden has been Ukraine’s biggest wartime backer, providing military aid worth more than $65 billion since February 2022. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — who launched the Ramstein format shortly after the war started — announced the new military aid package on Thursday.

The aid, which includes a wide range of missiles and other weapons and equipment, as well as provisions for services, training and transportation, will be the 74th such package provided from existing U.S. military inventories for Ukraine since Mr. Biden took office, the State Department said in a statement.

“The United States and more than 50 nations stand united to ensure Ukraine has the capabilities it needs to defend itself against Russia’s aggression,”  Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the statement.

Ukraine’s war against the invading Russian forces “matters to all of us,” Austin said, opening the 25th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. “We all have a stake in ensuring that autocrats cannot place their imperial ambitions ahead of the bedrock rights of free and sovereign peoples.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she hoped the U.S. would continue supporting Ukraine. If not, she added, the EU was ready to take the lead.

“I’m really sure that all the other members, and hopefully also the United States, are ready to continue with the support to Ukraine,” Kallas said as she headed to the Ramstein meeting.

At this stage, she told journalists, “we shouldn’t really speculate” about future U.S. support. But she did say that it “is not in the interest of America that Russia will be the strongest force in the world.”

But she added that “the European Union is also ready to take over this leadership if the United States is not willing to do so.”

Russian and Ukrainian forces are now engaged in fierce fighting, looking to secure their battlefield positions before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has long criticized NATO allies for spending too little on the bloc’s shared defense. This week, he sparked further alarm by refusing to rule out military action to take Greenland, an autonomous territory of EU and NATO member Denmark, under U.S. control, along with the Panama Canal.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said allies needed to help Ukraine reach a position of strength ahead of any eventual ceasefire or peace talks.

“We have to bring Ukraine into the best possible position that one day, when talks would start at the initiative of Ukraine on how to solve this conflict, that they are in the best possible position to do that,” he said. “And then when these talks end, it will be looked at, in a sense, whether it is a good deal or not. And if it is not a good deal, it will be watched by the Chinese, the North Koreans, Iran, obviously, Russia.”

“The whole world is watching,” stressed Rutte.