Western leaders meeting Friday at the Munich Security Conference answered a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for immediate additional aid to counter the Russian invasion of his country.
About 40 heads of state and government, as well as politicians and security experts from almost 100 countries, including the United States, European nations and China, are attending the three-day annual gathering of the international security community, designed to provide a platform to discuss the world’s conflicts.
For the first time in two decades, Russian leaders were not invited to the conference. Last year, Russian officials declined to attend the event, which ended four days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Zelenskyy addressed the conference remotely, urging his Western allies to “hurry up” and deliver promised military aid. Drawing a comparison between his nation’s war with Russia and the biblical story of David and Goliath, Zelenskyy said, “Goliath must lose!”
A short time later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz seemed to respond to that call, urging any allies who can deliver its advanced Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine to do so immediately, and promising to provide logistical support for those who do.
Scholz’s position represents a significant swing from last month, when his government mulled for several days whether to provide the advanced tanks to Ukraine out of fear of escalating the situation.
In remarks to the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron echoed those sentiments, urging allies to "intensify our support" for Ukraine. While he insisted that he did not want to see a drawn-out war, Macron said France was ready for a "prolonged conflict.”
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators are among those representing the United States at the conference. Harris is scheduled to address the conference Saturday.
Along with Ukraine, rising tensions between the U.S. and China also are expected to be on the agenda in Munich, after the U.S. military shot down an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon over U.S. territory last week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is attending the conference.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
