Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with the leaders of dozens of European nations to discuss future Western support for Kiev. 

The meeting of the ‘coalition of the willing’ took place on Tuesday. The coalition is a group of Western nations providing support to Ukraine without American backing. The organization was formed in response to President Donald Trump’s curtailing of US support for Ukraine. 

“Only the help of our friends and the resilience of our people gave us the possibility to survive. That’s why we are asking to help us to renovate the energy system,” Zelensky said at the summit. “I hope that we will end this war, but anyway we have to think about next winter, and we need quick steps. We have plans.”

The Ukrainian leader also thanked NATO for providing air defenses through the PURL fund. European members of NATO established PURL to buy American weapons for Ukraine. 

European leaders attending the summit stressed the importance of intensifying the economic war against Russia. However, the European Union’s appetite for adding new sanctions to Russia may be waning. 

During a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, the bloc failed to adopt a new round of sanctions against Russia. “Unfortunately, we did not reach an agreement on the 20th sanctions package. This is a setback and message we didn’t want to send today, but the work continues,” foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

Canada did announce unilateral sanctions on Russia and pledged to spend an additional $2 billion in military assistance for Ukraine.