Ukraine pleads for ‘weapons, weapons, weapons’ at talks with Nato as Russian forces besiege Mariupol and eastern cities

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reiterated calls for heavier weaponry to aid its defence against Russia at the start of talks with his counterparts from Nato countries on Thursday.

“It’s weapons, weapons, weapons,” Kuleba said of his agenda ahead of the meeting in Brussels. He said the best way to help Ukraine would be to provide the country with everything it needed to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place and defeat the Russian army.

Kuleba said that Germany could do more in terms of arms deliveries “given its reserves and capacities” and that decision-making was taking too long. “While Berlin has time, Kyiv has none,” he said. The more and the faster Ukraine received weapons, the more lives would be saved and the fewer cities would be destroyed, he added.

Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the alliance was trying to increase its help to Kyiv with “different military weapons.”

“We are looking closely with our partners how we can support Ukraine in the future, more intensively and more coordinated because they have a right of self-defence and we will support this right of self-defence together with different partners,” she said.

These discussions were also taking place between the G7 group of major powers, she said.