Germany’s president, Olaf Scholz, arrived in Kyiv on Monday morning for a surprise visit. Der Spiegel reported Scholz as saying he wanted to express his solidarity and promised Germany would remain “Ukraine’s strongest supporter in Europe. He would meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and €650m in further military equipment be delivered in December.
At least two people were killed and others injured in a Russian attack on Ternopil in western Ukraine, reports said on Monday morning. The city mayor, Serhiy Nadal, said a drone hit the fifth floor of an apartment building, starting a fire.
Ukraine’s air force said on Monday that Russia launched 110 drone attacks the previous night. The air force shot down 52 while 50 were “lost”, likely due to electronic warfare, it said. One remained in Ukrainian airspace and six headed toward Belarus and Russia.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Sunday there was still time to convince “sceptics” that Ukraine should be invited to join Nato. “An invitation for Ukraine to join Nato is a necessary thing for our survival,” Zelenskyy said. On Friday, Zelenskyy said that Nato protection for the free part of Ukraine could end the “hot war”, leaving Kyiv to regain the Russian-occupied areas through diplomatic means.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country needed security guarantees from Nato and more weapons to defend itself before any talks with Russia. He called for “steps forward with Nato” and a “good number” of long-distance weapons for Ukraine to defend itself. “Only when we have all these items and we are strong, after that, we have to make the very important … agenda of meeting with one or another of the killers,” he said, adding that the EU and Nato should be involved in any negotiations. Zelenskyy made the comments after meeting the EU’s new top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and the EU council chief, Antonio Costa, who were visiting Kyiv as a show of support on their first day in office.
Kallas said before their meeting that for Kyiv “the strongest security guarantee is Nato membership … We need to definitely discuss this – if Ukraine decides to draw the line somewhere, then how can we secure peace so that Putin doesn’t go any further.” Kallas said the EU “shouldn’t really rule out anything” in terms of the question of sending European troops to help enforce any ceasefire. “We should have this strategic ambiguity around this,” she said.
