Germany says it will step up weapons support for Ukraine

Soldiers with the 42nd Separate Mechanized Brigade at an air defense position, where they monitor for, and shoot down armed Russian Shahed drones in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, May 19, 2025. In the latest sign of a warming relationship, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Berlin with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said Germany would increase funding for arms production and supplies.(Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)

By Christopher F. Schuetze and Marc Santora

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that Germany would step up its support for Ukraine, increasing funding for the production of weapons — including long-range ones — and sending more military equipment to Kyiv.

The announcement, made at a joint news conference with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, comes as the United States is stepping away from the conflict and as Europe has been forced to move unto the breach.

Merz, without providing specifics, said Germany would supply Ukraine with more funding to step up domestic production of weapons, including those with long-range capabilities, and also increase shipments of military equipment from Germany.

The German Defense Ministry later provided more detail about the aid, saying it included cooperation in weapons construction, air-defense systems, hand-held and other weapons and financing of satellite communications. The value was roughly 5 billion euros (about $5.7 billion), it said.

Zelenskyy was visiting Berlin in a bid to secure more assistance from Europe’s industrial powerhouse and holding his third meeting with Merz since the German leader took office this month. His trip came as both Moscow and Ukraine race to expand their arsenals to fight a war that is set to drag into a fourth straight summer.

The meetings between Merz and Zelenskyy underscore the chancellor’s efforts to reestablish German leadership among European allies in the face of weakening U.S. commitments to NATO and the importance his country will play in sustaining the Ukrainian war effort.

Germans themselves have been generally divided on whether the country should keep supporting Ukraine. While some feel the defense of Ukraine is important for European security, many in the east and many far-right voters support Russia or fear provoking it.

The German economy is also in crisis, which has put pressure on German governments. But a move in March to loosen borrowing limits on the government — freeing it to spend more on defense and infrastructure — could bolster Merz’s efforts to send more aid to Ukraine without forcing him to make budget cuts elsewhere.

At the news briefing, Zelenskyy said he felt that Ukraine should be invited to a NATO summit that is set to take place in The Hague this summer.

“If Ukraine is not present at the NATO summit,” he said, “it will be a victory not over Ukraine, but over NATO — a victory for Putin.” He did not say if he and Merz had discussed the issue, and said it was up to NATO to make that decision.

Before traveling to Germany, Zelenskyy said that securing financing to expand Ukraine’s domestic arms production will be a central goal.

“We need financial support,” Zelenskyy told reporters Tuesday at a briefing in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. “That’s the biggest issue — not technology limits or lack of long-range weapons. It’s about money.”

In his Tuesday evening address to the nation, Zelenskyy listed the equipment his country needed: “Attack drones, interceptors, cruise missiles, Ukrainian ballistic systems — these are the key elements. We must manufacture all of them.”

After years traveling the world in search of weapons to help his nation battle a far larger enemy, Zelenskyy said at the briefing Tuesday that Kyiv now needed some $30 billion in annual financing to fund its domestic arms production at full capacity.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on Wednesday lashed out at Merz’s promise of more military aid to Ukraine. “Germany is sliding down the same slope that it has already been moving down a couple of times in the last century, toward its collapse,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television. “I hope that responsible politicians in this country will finally draw the right conclusions and stop this madness,” he added.

With neither side able to achieve major breakthroughs on the front for more than two years and Russia once again on the offensive, the arms race takes on ever greater importance, said Seth G. Jones, a former Defense Department official who closely tracks the war.

“In wars of attrition, victory has frequently gone to the side with the more productive defense industrial base,” he said.

With the Trump administration so far unwilling to approve new military assistance for Ukraine and European allies struggling to fill the void, expanding sanctions, Zelenskyy said Tuesday, is “a crucial step” in slowing Russian forces down.

Still, he insisted that Moscow cannot afford to wage war indefinitely.

“Multiple intelligence analyses agree: We all hope that by June 2026, the war will be over,” he said. “But even now, sanctions are affecting the Russian economy.”

Zelenskyy arrived at the chancellery in a motorcade of black limousines, escorted by police officers on motorcycles. Wearing a black suit and a button-down shirt, he was greeted by Merz, and then a German military band played the national anthems of both countries.

Merz has supported expanded sanctions to force President Vladimir Putin of Russia to agree to a ceasefire.

At the moment, Russia’s military industrial complex continues to expand, and the Kremlin is able to replenish its forces at a far faster rate than Ukraine.

In recent months, Zelenskyy said at the briefing Tuesday, Russia has been able to recruit 40,000 to 50,000 new soldiers, while Ukraine is mobilizing 25,000 to 27,000.

The White House has so far resisted taking any steps to pressure Moscow, maintaining that it would undermine diplomacy. After Russia’s most recent bombardments — some of the largest of the war — President Donald Trump lashed out at Putin, saying he had gone “crazy.”

Trump expressed renewed frustration with the Russian leader Tuesday, writing on social media that “if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia.”

Still, Trump gave no indication of what steps he was willing to take to pressure the Kremlin and has made it clear that he expects Europe to take the lead in supporting Ukraine.

And again on Wednesday, Trump said he was “not happy” with Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukraine, adding that he would find out soon whether Putin was stringing him along in U.S.-facilitated ceasefire talks.

Merz’s warm embrace of Zelenskyy stands in stark contrast to the initially cool relationship that Olaf Scholz, the previous German chancellor, had with the Ukrainian leader. Scholz did not visit Ukraine until a year after Russia invaded. But just three days after being sworn in this month, Merz traveled to Ukraine.

While both Russian and Ukraine are ramping up arms production, they are also locked in a ferocious campaign to degrade each other’s military industrial complex through both overt and covert actions.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported Wednesday that it had shot down nearly 300 Ukrainian drones in an overnight attack aimed at military-industrial targets. The Ukrainian air force said the latest Russian bombardment before dawn Wednesday featured 88 drones, five ballistic missiles and a cruise missile.

Zelenskyy said that even as Kyiv stands ready to continue negotiations in almost any format, the only way to achieve peace is to raise the cost of war for the Kremlin.

Zelenskyy told the reporters Tuesday that he remained ready for a direct meeting with Putin, or a meeting with both Putin and Trump. “If Putin only wants a tri-party format, that’s fine too. I see no problem with formats; the key is substance.”