German Chancellor Friedrich Merz appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday to stand with Europe in defending Ukraine and to move to provide the embattled country with additional missile defense systems.
“Stay with us and stay with the Europeans,” Merz said at the recovery conference for Ukraine in Rome. “We are looking for a stable political order in this world. Stay with us on this side and on this page of our common history.”
Trump’s willingness to continue U.S. support for Ukraine has been in question in recent weeks and months, particularly as his administration has dithered on supporting a substantial new sanctions bill targeting Russia under consideration in the U.S. Senate. At the beginning of July, the Pentagon halted shipments of some air defense missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine.
This week, however, Senate leaders said Trump was ready to throw his support behind the sanction package and the U.S. resumed paused weapons deliveries. That has raised hopes in Europe that the Trump administration has turned a corner on supporting Ukraine amid Russia’s escalating bombardment of the embattled country. Despite the recent shift, however, Ukraine’s European allies still worry that Trump’s support is fickle.
Merz on Thursday emphasized the need to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses in cooperation with the U.S. by providing Kyiv with additional U.S. Patriot missile defense systems, which are used for shooting down Russian missiles and drones.
“I am in close contact with the U.S. government and President Trump on this,” said Merz. “We are also prepared to acquire additional patriot systems from the U.S. in order to make them available to Ukraine.”
Merz said he spoke to Trump about Patriots last Thursday and asked the president to “deliver these systems.” The U.S., he added, “needs some of them themselves, but they also have a lot of them and the defense ministers are currently negotiating whether they will be delivered. This has not been finally decided.”
In his comments Thursday, Merz also criticized Slovakia and its prime minister for holding back passage of an 18th package of EU sanctions against Russia. Under Prime Minister Robert Fico, who hails from the country’s leftist-populist Smer party, EU and NATO member Slovakia has broken ranks with Western allies on Ukraine, including by halting military aid to Kyiv amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
“I urgently ask Slovakia and its prime minister to give up the resistance and to free the way” for the sanctions package, said Merz. The chancellor also reiterated German support for Ukraine’s path to EU membership.
The Ukraine Recovery Conference this week in Rome has drawn international leaders to make commitments on the embattled country’s reconstruction.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the creation of the European Flagship Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine at the conference on Thursday.
This article has been updated.
