Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging NATO leaders at a Washington summit to lift restrictions on how his country's forces can use weapons they supply.
Zelensky and the leaders of NATO's 32 member states were meeting for the NATO-Ukraine council on Thursday, the third and final day of a NATO summit in Washington.
In a press conference before the meeting, Zelensky said Ukrainian forces need to be able to strike targets in Russian territory.
The restrictions are set by individual NATO countries, not NATO itself. Some, such as Lithuania, are giving Ukraine arms without restrictions, other than the limits of international law.
But others impose strict rules on how they can be used, especially when it comes to striking targets in Russia. For example, the United States only allows strikes on the Russian side of the border in order for Ukraine to return fire in the vicinity of Kharkiv. Italy, meanwhile, only allows its weapons to be used against targets on Ukraine's territory.
"If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations," Zelensky said.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, NATO leaders announced further military support for Ukraine's efforts to repel the Russian invasion, including air-defence systems and a pledge to spend €40 billion ($43 billion) in the next year. They also declared Ukraine's future path to NATO membership "irreversible."
The final day of the summit was devoted to external relations: The NATO-Ukraine Council followed a meeting with the four Indo-Pacific partners of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that the summit had been "very successful." He said its focus is "increasing [NATO's] capabilities, increasing the strength of NATO, and also spending more for defence and organizing a successful deterrence."
The United States and Germany announced on Tuesday that the former would station long-range cruise missiles in Germany to strengthen NATO's deterrence in Europe.
"We know that there has been an incredible arms build-up in Russia, with weapons that threaten European territory," Scholz told reporters on Thursday.
There had been lengthy discussions on how to respond with conventional deterrence in addition to the NATO nuclear umbrella. The deployment of long-range weapons had already been laid down a year ago in Germany's first National Security Strategy.
"That is why the United States' decision fits in perfectly with this strategy, which we have been discussing publicly for a long time," Scholz said.
US President Joe Biden opened the summit with a speech at a ceremony marking NATO's 75th anniversary on Tuesday.
With US domestic politics increasingly dominated by concerns about the 81-year-old president's mental capacity, his performance is being watched closely, especially by his own Democratic Party that wants to defeat Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in November's presidential election.
Biden was able to read his speech from a teleprompter without any major slip-ups, though he occasionally slurred his words.
On Thursday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said he had no concerns about Biden's capabilities.
"I have absolutely no concerns about the capacity of the current president of the United States to lead his country and to lead our fight for Ukraine and to lead NATO," Stubb told reporters.
"I've had the opportunity to speak to President Biden on many occasions during the past 48 hours," Stubb said. "We human beings, when we're treated in the public eye, we're never as good as we sometimes look, and we're never as bad."
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