Merz pledges €1 billion in weapons and €350 million for Ukraine's grid during a Kyiv raid

Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced about €1.35 billion in new German help for Ukraine on Sunday in Kyiv, and did it while Russian strikes hit the capital. The split is €1 billion in military aid and €350 million for repairs to the energy system. Bloomberg put the combined package at about €1.35 billion, or 1.5 billion dollars. Merz travelled by train, a day after the Kremlin warned that foreign diplomats in the city were in mortal danger. Air-raid sirens and explosions sounded repeatedly during the visit.

Speaking with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Merz said Germany would fund joint production of drones built to intercept Russia's jet-powered drones. He said technical work in recent weeks had sped production. The military slice, he said, was so Ukraine could also hit Russian launch sites. The energy slice is for a grid that Moscow has struck ahead of winter. The Guardian marked the day as day 1,685 of the war.

Fourteen contracts, three named firms

German officials said executives who travelled with Merz signed 14 agreements with Ukrainian counterparts worth about €6.6 billion. Three were named. Diehl Defence is to supply IRIS-T air-defence missiles. Hensoldt is to supply radar. Quantum Systems is to supply jet drone interceptors. The €6.6 billion is not the same pot as the €1.35 billion. One figure is a government aid announcement. The other is a set of company agreements signed on the trip. Coverage that adds them together double-counts.

IRIS-T is already in Ukrainian service as a short-range air-defence missile. A new Diehl contract extends that stock. Hensoldt radar feeds the picture those missiles and other systems fire on. Quantum Systems has sold reconnaissance drones to Ukraine before. The interceptor variant is the new line Merz tied to Russia's jet-powered drones, which fly faster than the small propeller drones used earlier in the war and which have been aimed at power plants.

What the visit does not settle

Merz said Germany would not be pushed off support for Ukraine. He did not publish a delivery schedule for the €1 billion, or a list of the long-range weapons Bloomberg reported were included. Satellite technology was also named in that account. Long-range weapons remain the politically sensitive item in Berlin, because they are the systems Ukraine would use against launch sites inside Russia. Merz's phrase on Sunday was that Ukraine should be able to target those pads. The contract annex that would show range, number and date was not released.

The energy €350 million is easier to place. It is repair money for a system under attack in the week the chancellor visited. It will not replace generation capacity destroyed in earlier seasons. It can pay for transformers, lines and emergency equipment if the contracts are written that way. The 14 commercial agreements are larger on paper and slower in delivery. The number to watch this month is whether the €350 million is obligated before the next round of strikes on the grid, not whether the €6.6 billion headline is repeated.

The train and the warning

Merz arrived at Kyiv's main station early on Sunday, a day after Moscow had told foreign diplomats they were in mortal danger if they stayed. He came anyway, by rail rather than by air, which has been the pattern for European leaders since the airspace closed. The sirens during the meetings are the part of the visit that does not need a communique. They fix the package to a day when the city was under attack, which is the argument Kyiv uses for air-defence missiles and for the interceptor drones in the Quantum Systems line.

Germany is already among the largest European donors of military kit. Sunday's announcement does not change that rank by itself. It adds a dated pledge, a named energy sum, and three company names to a file that has often been reported as a single undifferentiated billion. The split, €1 billion for weapons and €350 million for the grid, is the figure that can be checked against later contract notices. The €6.6 billion is a sum of private agreements and should be read as such.