Ukraine presses for long-range strike support at Ramstein meeting

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00:00Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has traveled to Rammstein Air Base in Germany this Friday

00:04as part of his ongoing mission to convince Western allies to allow Kyiv to carry out

00:09long-range strikes into Russia. In recent weeks, Moscow has launched hundreds of drone and missile

00:14attacks across Ukrainian territory, sharply underscoring what Kyiv has described as an

00:19urgent need for greater air defense capabilities. Here's Zelensky speaking a short while ago in

00:24Germany.

00:54For more on that visit by the Ukrainian President, we can cross now to Nick Holdsworth, our correspondent in Berlin.

01:05Nick, what exactly was Volodymyr Zelensky's objective in traveling to Rammstein in Germany today?

01:13Well, it's significant because this is the first time that the Ukrainian President has come to this

01:17Ukrainian defense contact group, which is a regular series of meetings held between the

01:23Western allies and Ukraine in Rammstein, southwest of Frankfurt in Germany. It's a big air base down

01:29there. And his personal appearance comes just a week ahead of his coming up visit to Washington,

01:36where he's going to be presenting a peace plan to President Biden, arguing that now is the time to

01:43press further for peace. So today was about urging the West to up the game and to allow Ukraine to

01:51finally use longer range defensive missiles to strike deep within Russian territory at those

01:59bases, military bases, air bases from which Russia is firing long range weapons into Ukraine. We've

02:05had a couple of pretty nasty attacks just in the last few days, with more than 50 young members of

02:12a military training academy killed and hundreds injured and also 50 civilians injured in an attack

02:18in eastern Ukraine just today from Russian ballistic missile attacks. So it's really

02:25important that Zelensky is showing his face coming and urging the West finally to act. He says that

02:32all of the Russian red lines have already been crossed. The Ukrainians have made this incursion

02:39into Kursk. Now is the time to support Ukraine ahead of what could be a very bleak winter for

02:44the country.

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