In 2024, Ukraine will receive weapons that do not yet exist and that will help to attack the Russian military and their logistics hubs, the head of the press and information department of the Ministry of Defense, Illarion Pavlyuk, said following the results of the 18th meeting of the Contact Group on the Defense of Ukraine in the "Ramstein" format.
The meeting was held online on Tuesday. The Ukrainian delegation was headed by Defense Minister Rustem Umyerov.
"We have heard enough important statements from partners, enough important commitments to say that strong support for Ukraine will continue," said Illarion Pavlyuk at the end of the meeting.
According to the head of the press department, Ukraine will receive from its partners the weapons that are absolutely necessary in order to effectively overcome the enemy both on the front line and in the rear, to destroy his logistics nodes.
In particular, there was a commitment to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons.
"There is a complete understanding of the partners that we need these weapons, and an obligation to work on providing Ukraine with more weapons for such strikes," Hilarion Pavlyuk noted.
For his part, the head of the Department of International Defense Cooperation, Gennady Kovalenko, noted that representatives of more than 50 countries participated in the meeting.
According to him, the parties discussed the strengthening of Ukraineʼs capabilities within the aviation, anti-aircraft, artillery coalitions and the maritime security coalition. In particular, within the framework of the aviation coalition, in addition to the commitment to provide F-16 aircraft, the allies also discussed the provision of additional helicopters.
- The "Ramstein" format was launched in the spring of 2022 — on April 26, the first meeting of the advisory group on providing assistance to Ukraine took place at the US Air Force Base Ramstein in Germany. Oleksiy Reznikov, then Minister of Defense of Ukraine, stated after this meeting that there had been "tectonic changes" in the philosophy of the partners regarding the provision of arms to Ukraine. It was decided to hold meetings of the advisory group every month.