Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi will urge European Union (EU) leaders to speed up arms deliveries to Kyiv, a Ukrainian official told reporters on Wednesday.
Zelensky is expected to attend the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.
“My president is traveling to achieve results,” said the Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “First and foremost, the bottom line is the guns.”
Zelensky will urge the European Council, which brings together the leaders of the 27 EU countries, to “speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine,” the official said.
As European diplomats assured the AFP news agency, Zelenskiy will have bilateral talks with the leaders of several EU countries on the sidelines of the summit, because he knows that the bloc itself has no weapons to supply.
The Ukrainian official stressed that Kyiv urgently needs ammunition, artillery, battle tanks and jet fighters to repel the Russian attack and renew its counteroffensive.
The request for the jet fighters is “not unrealistic” and Kyiv hopes the process will move forward faster than it did around the tank deliveries, the official said.
Zelensky will focus on the country’s bid to join the EU and also try to secure broad support for Kyiv’s peace plan proposals, the official said.
He repeated a call Zelensky made to Brussels officials last week that formal talks on Kyiv’s accession to the bloc should begin this year.
“We would not want to become hostage to bureaucratic hurdles,” the official said.
