Merz pledges €1 billion in military aid in Kyiv as a drone hits the Northern Bridge

Chancellor Friedrich Merz stood in Kyiv on Sunday and put a fresh number on German support: €1 billion in military aid, about $1.1 billion, plus €350 million for repairs to Ukraine's energy system. German officials said company executives who travelled with him signed 14 agreements worth about €6.6 billion. Air-raid sirens and explosions sounded across the capital while he was there.

The military package includes money for joint production of drones meant to intercept Russia's jet-powered drones. Merz said significant technical breakthroughs in recent weeks were speeding production. Bloomberg, describing the same visit, put the combined weapons and energy package at about $1.5 billion and said the assistance would include long-range weapons, combat drones and satellite technology. Its figure for energy repairs was $391 million, close to the €350 million reported by Reuters and the Guardian. The two accounts describe one announcement, not two separate funds.

The commercial side is more specific than the headline sum. Ukraine signed with Diehl Defence for IRIS-T air-defence missiles, with Hensoldt for radar equipment, and with Quantum Systems for jet drone interceptors. Bloomberg listed Siemens Energy, Hensoldt, Helsing and ARX Robotics among the firms represented. Economy minister Katherina Reiche travelled with Merz, along with executives from 10 defence and energy companies. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the visit mattered because Ukraine was sharing knowledge and orders, not only receiving help. Merz called the partnership a two-way arrangement.

The timing was deliberate. Merz travelled by train a day after the Kremlin warned that foreign diplomats in Kyiv were in mortal danger. He said he had come because Ukraine needed support in the coming weeks, and that Germany would not be intimidated into dropping that support. He tied the spending to European security, and said Russia was carrying out cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns aimed at European democracy. He also warned that if Russia was not stopped, its war machine would sooner or later be turned against the Western alliance. Moscow has called accusations of hybrid warfare baseless.

The strikes during the visit were not abstract. A Russian drone hit Kyiv's Northern Bridge over the Dnipro, the fourth day in a row that Russia has targeted bridges used by tens of thousands of people moving between the two banks of the city. Video showed cars on the bridge as the drone hit the roadway. Later on Sunday a Russian airstrike hit Kharkiv. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said one person was killed and six injured. Early Monday, Governor Oleh Kiper said strikes had hit industrial and port infrastructure in the Odesa region and that the fires had been put out.

Zelenskyy, speaking alongside Merz, said he believed Russia might have shared jet-drone technology with North Korea. He said he did not know the detail on ballistic missiles, but he thought the transfer was real because North Korea had helped Russia with missiles. Separately, foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine's military had used drones to deliver almost four metric tons of food and medicine to the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in the south.

The Guardian marked the day as day 1,685 of the full-scale war. Winter is the constraint on the energy money. Russia has spent successive cold seasons hitting generation and transmission. A €350 million repair fund does not replace lost capacity. It pays for parts, crews and temporary fixes on a grid that is already being struck while the contracts are signed.

The open item is delivery, not the signature. IRIS-T missiles and Hensoldt radar have known production queues. Quantum Systems interceptors are newer, and Merz's claim of a technical breakthrough is a claim about factory output, not about a weapon already on a launcher in Kyiv. The €6.6 billion in agreements will matter if the hardware arrives before the next concentrated strike on the bridges and the power plants. The Northern Bridge was hit while the chancellor was still in the city.