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U.S. President Joe Biden talked by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Wednesday about defense aid for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.
Biden also announced a $425 million security assistance package for the eastern European nation that includes additional air defense capabilities, air-to-ground munitions, armored vehicles and munitions critical to addressing its pressing military needs.
The U.S. is set to supply Ukraine with more equipment in the coming months, including hundreds of air defense interceptors, dozens of tactical air defense systems, additional artillery systems, hundreds of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.
Biden is scheduled to host a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group next month to coordinate international assistance for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy is planning to press his country's case for NATO membership on Thursday when he meets in Brussels with defense ministers from the West's key military alliance, but NATO chief Mark Rutte said "difficult" issues remain before Ukraine can join.
'Victory plan'
In a speech to the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday, Zelenskyy outlined what he described as a "victory plan" to end Russia's 32-month invasion, including a call for an unconditional invitation to join NATO and for the deployment of a nonnuclear deterrent to Russian aggression.
"Together with our partners, we must change the circumstances so that the war ends," Zelenskyy said. "Regardless of what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants, we must all change the circumstances so that Russia is forced to peace."
Rutte said Ukraine's eventual membership in NATO is "irreversible" when the time is right, but because Kyiv cannot join while at war, he declined to put a timeline on membership. Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and restore the country's territorial lines before Russia unilaterally annexed Crimea in 2014, a proposal Moscow has rejected.
Under NATO's charter, each of the 32 member nations is obligated to militarily help defend any of the other 31 countries if they are invaded, a provision that has only been invoked once, when numerous countries deployed troops to fight alongside U.S. forces fighting al-Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan after their 2001 attack killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.
NATO countries, led by the U.S., have sent billions of dollars of armaments to Ukraine for Kyiv's deployment in fighting Russia but no troops.
Other parts of Zelenskyy's "victory plan" include postwar reconstruction pledges from Ukrainian allies as well as help in defending Ukraine's natural mineral resources.
Zelenskyy has been discussing the plan in recent weeks in meetings with Western leaders. He said he will do so again Thursday when he meets with European Union leaders in Brussels.
Moscow criticized the Zelenskyy plan as risking a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
"He is pushing NATO members toward a direct conflict with our country and is again insisting on getting permission to use long-range weapons on Russian territory," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
Rutte did not directly respond to Kyiv's demand for a formal NATO invitation.
"NATO in Washington decided to make the path toward NATO membership for Ukraine [an] irreversible path," Rutte said. "We are in close contact with allies, with Ukraine, to see how we can take next steps, how to do that in a way which is also successful."
Rutte said he is discussing aspects of Zelenskyy's plan with NATO member countries.
"The victory plan, of course, we are very much debating with them and using every opportunity to take that one step by step further," Rutte said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has dismissed Zelenskyy's proposal, calling it an "ephemeral peace plan."
"The only peace plan there can be is for the Kyiv regime to realize the futility of the policy it is pursuing and understand the need to sober up," Peskov said.
Drone warfare continues
On the battlefront, Ukraine's military said Wednesday it shot down 51 of 136 drones that Russia used to target the country in overnight attacks.
The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Ternopil and Zhytomyr regions, the Ukrainian air force said.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said that air raid alerts lasted for two hours in the Ukrainian capital, but that air defenses destroyed all the drones that targeted the area. There were no reports of damage or casualties, Popko said on Telegram.
Russia also fired two missiles as part of its attack.
Russia's Defense Ministry reported Wednesday that its air defenses destroyed two Ukrainian aerial drones over the Belgorod region and another drone over Voronezh.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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