Merz signs a $1.5 billion Ukraine package in Kyiv as a drone hits the Pivnichnyi Bridge

Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a package of weapons and energy aid worth about $1.5 billion during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Sunday, the same morning a Russian drone struck the Pivnichnyi Bridge. He had travelled by train a day after the Kremlin warned that foreign diplomats in the capital were in mortal danger. Economy minister Katherina Reiche came with him, along with executives from 10 defence and energy firms, including Siemens Energy, Hensoldt, Helsing and ARX Robotics.

The package includes long-range weapons, combat drones and satellite technology, Merz said at a joint press conference with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Of the total, $391 million is for repairs to energy infrastructure that Russian forces have been hitting ahead of winter. The agreement also covers joint production of anti-jet drones, the class Ukraine has been asking for interceptors against. Merz said significant technical work had already been done in recent weeks and that production was now being increased. He said Germany was supplying standoff weapons, combat drones and satellite technology so Ukraine could also target Russian launch sites.

The bridge and the plant

Zelenskyy wrote on Sunday that Russian forces had again struck the Pivnichnyi Bridge with a drone that morning, and that they had attacked a pharmaceutical warehouse in Sumy, killing one person. He put the overnight attack at 135 drones, more than 50 of them jet-powered, with strikes reported in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia. Over the week he counted more than 1,900 drones, 1,700 aerial bombs and 25 missiles. The Sumy site was the Indian-owned Kusum Healthcare plant. The bridge strike landed as the German chancellor was in the city.

Merz and Zelenskyy stood at a makeshift memorial for Ukrainian and foreign soldiers on Independence Square. Merz said he had come because Ukraine would need all available support in the coming weeks. He also said that if Russia were not stopped, its war machine would sooner or later be turned against the countries now supplying Kyiv. He described the partnership as not a one-way street, a line aimed at the German firms on the train who want production work as well as orders.

What the money is for

The split inside the $1.5 billion matters more than the headline. Weapons and drones are a military line. The $391 million energy slice is a winter line: transformers, repair crews and the kit that keeps heat and light on when substations are hit. Ukraine has spent successive winters replacing that equipment. A sum of that size will not rebuild the grid. It will cover a defined repair programme through the cold months, which is the window Russia has been striking.

The anti-jet drone line is the piece tied directly to Sunday's air picture. Jet-powered drones are faster than the propeller drones Ukraine has learned to shoot down with mobile groups and older guns. Merz said production is being ramped up after technical work in recent weeks. He did not give a monthly output figure. Until that number is published, the commitment is a production decision, not yet a delivery schedule.

The visit also sits against India's separate channel. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Sunday that New Delhi is talking to both Moscow and Kyiv about Black Sea shipping, grain, energy exports and possible non-attack understandings. Germany is sending weapons and repair money. India is offering talks on corridors and energy. Both are responses to the same winter strike pattern, and they do not cancel each other. The bridge Merz heard about on arrival is still the constraint: as long as launch sites keep sending jet drones at Kyiv and at plants like Kusum's in Sumy, the repair budget and the interceptor line are the parts of the package with a date attached to them.