EU to increase drone and missile funding for Ukraine
Commission President von der Leyen also backs Zelenskiy's call for a ceasefire with Russia
Published
The European Commission says the European Union will increase funding for drones and missiles to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses and protect its skies. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paired the announcement with support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's call for a ceasefire with Russia.
The move follows a 6.1 billion euro air defense package the EU approved on September 11, continuing a pattern of incremental aid tranches through September and October. The new funding adds military hardware commitments rather than a fresh overall figure.
The ceasefire push comes after President Trump said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire, a claim neither side has confirmed on its own terms. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine will accept such a ceasefire only if Russia does too. Ukraine's negotiating team cut short a trip to Washington that had been due to run through Saturday, where it had planned to press officials including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on air defense. In recent days Ukraine has struck Russia's Samara oil pumping station and the Omsk and Ukhta refineries, part of a wider campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. Russian President Vladimir Putin told Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian that Russia was ready to take all measures to end the conflict, without naming any mechanism.
Von der Leyen's endorsement of a ceasefire matches her recent public statements on Ukraine but carries no enforcement mechanism of its own. It lands as another statement layered onto a negotiating track where earlier ceasefire claims have not held against continued strikes on refineries and power grids, leaving the broader military stalemate that both Washington and Moscow have acknowledged unchanged.