Ukraine still hopes that Germany will supply it with long-range weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today at a joint press conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, DPA reported, BTA reported.
In response to a question about whether the Ukrainian army still needs the German Taurus cruise missiles, Zelensky said: "Of course we need them, of course we will discuss this issue".
Merz said that Germany and Ukraine are striving for joint production of long-range weapons, but refused to answer the question of whether he would allow deliveries of Taurus missiles for Kiev - a request that his predecessor Olaf Scholz consistently rejected.
Moscow warned Berlin not to deliver the missiles.
The Ukrainian president accused Russia of stalling peace talks and said Moscow did not want to end its three-year invasion. "They will constantly look for reasons not to end the war", Zelensky said at the same press conference in Berlin, criticizing Russia for not agreeing on a place for the next round of talks, notes Agence France-Presse.
Zelensky also said that recently Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's team for the talks in Istanbul, had a telephone conversation with the head of the Russian delegation for these talks to discuss the memorandum that Moscow is currently working on and which sets out its conditions for a possible peace agreement, Reuters reported.
The agency recalls that Umerov headed the Ukrainian delegation to the May 16 talks, which were the first between the two warring parties since the spring of 2022, and the Russian team was led by Volodymyr Medinsky.
The Ukrainian leader said earlier that Kiev was still waiting for Moscow to present a memorandum on how it sees the future of the peace talks before it could responded.
Zelensky said Ukraine had contacted the Russian side after the talks in Istanbul, where Russia first said it would draft the memorandum, to ask about the document.
"Our side - we were in contact with the Russians. The defense minister called the Russian negotiator Medinsky. They said it would happen. But we never got it," Zelensky said, adding that the United States had also received nothing.
Zelensky, who is on his first visit to Berlin since Merz became chancellor, is also expected to meet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier later today.