Zelenskyy continues European tour with visits to Germany, Vatican

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued his European tour Friday, with a visit to Germany and the Vatican, as he talks about his formula for victory in his country’s war with Russia, which he said can bring an end to the conflict in the next year.
Zelenskyy met in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. At a briefing following their talks, Scholz announced $1.53 billion in military aid to Ukraine by the end of this year. Scholz said additional aid has been set aside to help repair Ukraine’s energy grid as winter approaches.
Scholz said through the aid package Germany wants to show Ukraine it can rely on their support and send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “playing for time will not work. We will not let up in our support for Ukraine.”
At the same briefing, Zelenskyy thanked Germany for its continued support, saying it is very important that aid for Ukraine does not decrease in the next year.
He said he would explain his formula for peace to the German chancellor and how he believes it can end the war “no later than next year, 2025, and guarantee that the aggression will not be repeated.”
Before stopping in Germany Friday, Zelenskyy met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, where, according to his official website, he also discussed his peace formula and thanked the pope for the Vatican’s participation in the first Ukrainian peace summit in Switzerland last June.
He also invited a Vatican representative to the upcoming conference on humanitarian aspects of his peace plan, which will be held on October 30–31 in Canada.
While providing no public details of the proposal, Zelenskyy has been promoting his peace plan to leaders throughout Europe.
Thursday, he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London, along with new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. He also met in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
Zelenskyy had planned to discuss his peace plan with U.S. President Joe Biden in Germany Saturday during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein U.S. air base in western Germany, but that meeting was postponed after Biden called off his trip to Germany because of Hurricane Milton.
Observers say Zelenskyy has been eager to secure European support for Ukraine’s war against Russia in the event former U.S. President Donald Trump is reelected next month. Trump has been a critic of U.S. funding for Ukraine’s defenses.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.