A meeting on Saturday of Ukraine's biggest arms donors to hear details of a "victory plan" drawn up by Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky has been postponed as US President Joe Biden can no longer attend. Zelenskiy will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday.
A summit meeting of Ukraine's key allies in Ramstein, Germany, has been postponed from Saturday after US President Joe Biden cancelled his visit, the organisers said on Wednesday.
The White House said Biden needed to oversee preparations for Hurricane Milton and relief efforts after another hurricane last month killed more than 200 people.
The Ramstein group of Ukraine's arms donors had been set to convene for its highest level meeting ever on the sidelines of Biden's Oct. 10-13 state visit to Germany, which would have been the first US state visit in nearly 40 years.
"The Oct. 12, 2024 event is postponed," the US public affairs office at Ramstein Air Base said in an email to journalists. "Announcements about future Ukraine Defence Contact Group meetings will be forthcoming."
The meeting aimed to underscore unwavering support for Kyiv against Russia's invasion at a time when Ukrainian armed forces are under huge pressure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Kyiv would present its "victory plan" to its allies in what would have been a test of Kyiv's vision on ending the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy is travelling in Europe to meet allies this week, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, two sources told Reuters.
Germany is Ukraine's second-biggest financial backer, though Scholz has balked at requests to equip Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles.
Zelensky will on Thursday hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
This meeting is the fifth by Zelenskiy to Paris since the invasion in 2022 and will be an opportunity for Macron "to reaffirm France's determination to continue to provide, over the long term and with all of its partners, unwavering support to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people", the French presidency said in a statement.
Zelensky is also expected to meet Pope Francis and hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during his stay in Rome this week.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv on the postponement of the summit, which one analyst said did not mean Ukraine would slip down the agenda.
"It was clear that Biden had to send the signal that he was taking care of domestic policy – so close to the (US) elections," said Stefan Mair, director of German foreign policy think tank SWP said. "I don't see this (postponement) as downgrading the importance of Ukraine."
A German defence ministry spokesperson said defence ministers aimed to meet within the Ramstein format this month but no decision had been made yet on when.
"It is true that the national security advisors are in close contact with each other and are also coordinating closely on the issue of Ukraine ... there should be a face-to-face meeting (of leaders) soon and an exchange of views," German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit told a briefing.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Washington gathered like-minded nations at the US air base in Ramstein, southwestern Germany, establishing a group of some 50 countries whose defence ministers meet regularly to match Kyiv's arms requests with pledges of donors.
Saturday's meeting – the first at the level of government leaders – had been scheduled to open with public remarks by Biden, Zelenskiy and Scholz, according to a German official.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
