Ninth Ramstein Format Meeting Scheduled for February

The next meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in the Ramstein format will be held in February.

“With each meeting, I see how our partners’ trust in Ukraine grows. This is all due to the hard work of our soldiers & representatives. More trust means more weapons. To protect our land, sea… & sky!” Minister of Defence of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov posted on Twitter.

The specific date is currently unknown.

Earlier, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Sybiha stated that the 8th Ramstein meeting was “armored”, and the ninth could become “aviation”.

As a reminder, the 8th Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting took place at the U.S. military base Ramstein in Germany on 20 January. Representatives of defence departments and governments of 54 countries took part in the event. During the meeting, a decision on the supply of modern Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine was not reached.

Before and after this meeting, several countries announced large packages of security assistance to Ukraine, including armoured personnel carriers, howitzers, vehicles, missiles, and ammunition.

The day before, President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the supply of dozens of Western tanks to Ukraine against Russia’s thousand will not solve the problem but will motivate the Ukrainian army. He criticised the position of Germany which declared its readiness to supply weapons only together with other partners, in particular the USA.

Bohdan Marusyak