European Countries vow billions in military support for Ukraine

as US envoy meets Putin

European countries vowed Friday, April 11, 2025, to send billions of dollars in further funding to help Ukraine keep fighting Russia’s invasion.

This comes as a U.S. envoy pursued peace efforts in a trip to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is amid growing questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to stop the more than three-year war.

After chairing a meeting of Ukraine’s Western backers in Brussels, British Defense Secretary John Healey said that new pledges of military aid totaled over 21 billion euros ($24 billion).

Healey says it is “a record boost in military funding for Ukraine, and we are also surging that support to the frontline fight.”

Healey gave no breakdown of that figure, and Ukraine has in the past complained that some countries repeat old offers at such pledging conferences.

They also lament that countries fail to deliver real arms and ammunition worth the money they promise.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that Ukraine’s backers have provided around $21 billion so far in the first three months of this year.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday that more than $26 billion have been committed.

In Moscow, meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was in Russia.

He says Witkoff would meet with Putin in St. Petersburg.

A footage by Russian media showed that Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, initially met with Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said a key issue was strengthening his country’s air defenses.

He said this ahead of the “contact group” meeting at NATO headquarters.

Standing alongside Healey at the end of it, Umerov described the meeting as “productive, effective and efficient.”

He also said that it produced “one of the largest” packages of assistance Ukraine has received.

“We’re thankful to each nation that has provided this support,” he added.

Russia holds off agreeing to ceasefire

Russian forces hold the advantage in Ukraine, with the war now in its fourth year.

Ukraine has endorsed a U.S. ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions.

AP News reports that the Russian delay in accepting Washington’s proposal has frustrated UTrump.

It has also fueled doubts about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin really wants to stop the fighting while his bigger army has momentum on the battlefield.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment late Thursday:

“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,”

Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal.

Although four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.

“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily.

It is a meat grinder,” Bruce said on Thursday about the war.

He added that “nothing else can be discussed … until the shooting and the killing stops.”

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