This handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential press service on Sept. 2, shows the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dick Schoof as they meet children in a school during their working trip to the Zaporizhzhia region.Supplied/AFP/Getty Images
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday Ukraine’s Western allies should not only allow their weapons to be used for strikes deep inside Russia, but also supply Kyiv with more of the arms themselves.
Ukraine has long urged partners to allow it to fire Western weapons at targets far into enemy territory, and those calls have grown louder as Russian air strikes on Ukrainian energy installations, other infrastructure and residential buildings intensify.
After a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, Zelensky said Kyiv was “more positive” about the prospects of getting such permission.
“For today, only to allow – is also not enough,” he said, adding that allies should ensure deliveries of weapons to use for such attacks. “We didn’t get everything we would like to use,” Zelensky added.
He said he discussed with Schoof strengthening Ukraine’s air defences. He mentioned there were “some ideas” on how to increase the fleet of F-16 jets donated by allies, one of which was lost in a crash in Ukraine last week.
“We will keep providing air defence equipment, and F-16s, and funding for munitions,” Schoof said.
Schoof added that the Netherlands would provide Ukraine with around 200 million euros ($221.4 million) in support to repair energy infrastructure and for humanitarian assistance.
The Netherlands will deliver refurbished gas turbines with a total value of 29.5 million euros and has allocated 45 million euros for repairing energy infrastructure, the Dutch foreign ministry said in a statement.
The money comes from a 400-million-euro aid fund the Dutch government pledged to Ukraine earlier this year.
Zelensky also commented on the situation on front lines, saying that Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Russia’s western region of Kursk was moving “according to the plan.”
He added that Ukraine believed the operation could help to ease pressure on the Pokrovsk front in Ukraine’s east, where Russia has accelerated its advances.
So far, he said, the situation there remained difficult.