German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Ukraine on Aug. 22 and meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, according to Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff.
“This information has already been confirmed by the German side,” Podolyak said on Aug. 9.
According to Podolyak, the leaders will discuss a wide range of topics including Russia’s war against Ukraine in eastern Donbas and potential security threats.
The Nord Stream 2 deal between Germany and the U.S. will also be discussed, according to Podolyak.
This will be the second face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Merkel in two months after Zelensky visited Berlin for two days on July 12.
The Ukrainian president came to Berlin in a last-ditch attempt to stop the construction of the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany and to secure a German arms shipment to Ukraine. Neither objective was successful.
“Nord Stream 2 is a huge security threat that is masked as an economic project,” said Zelensky during his joint press conference with Merkel.
Germany pledged to provide 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Ukraine but gave no promises of political or economic support.
On July 21, the U.S. State Department formally agreed not to stand in the way of the completion of Nord Stream 2.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, to be commissioned in late 2021, will allow Russia to transport an additional 55 billion cubic meters of gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea.
Ukraine currently has a gas transit agreement with Russia that expires in 2024. According to the contract, Russia is obligated to transport a minimum of 40 billion cubic meters of gas yearly. The five-year contract is worth at least $7.2 billion.
When Russia stops sending gas through Ukraine, the country stands to lose billions of dollars in transit fees each year.
To compensate, the July 21 deal between Germany and the U.S. created a so-called Green Fund , to which Germany has committed $175 million to promote and support investments in green energy in Ukraine.
With the fund, Germany hopes to attract $1 billion from third-party backers, including private investors.
