PARIS -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed Friday in Paris a 10-year bilateral security agreement with France hours after he made official a similar one with Germany. The agreements send a strong signal of long-term backing as Kyiv works to shore up Western support nearly two years after Russia launched its full-scale war.
Zelenskyy was greeted at the Elysee presidential palace by President Emmanuel Macron.
The agreement provides an additional package worth $3.2 billion in military aid this year, the largest annual amount France has given to Ukraine since the war began.
"The outcome of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine will be decisive for our interests, our values, our security and our model of society," Macron said.
"Yes, we must further invest" to support Ukraine "at a greater scale and in the long term," he added.
Zelenskyy's stop in France comes after he met earlier in the day in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said Berlin was providing another $1.2 billion package of military aid, including 36 howitzers, 120,000 rounds of artillery ammunition and two more air-defense systems.
Scholz described the long-term security accord as a "historic step." Ukraine signed last month its first such bilateral agreement with the U.K.
Zelenskyy said more deals were in the works with other countries. "Ukraine has never yet had more valuable and stronger documents," the president said.
The security agreements appear aimed primarily at sending a message of long-term solidarity as Ukraine has gone back on the defensive in the war, hindered by low ammunition supplies and a shortage of personnel.
"Two years after the beginning of this terrible war, we are sending a crystal-clear message today to the Russian president: we will not ease off in our support for Ukraine," Scholz said. He put his country's deliveries and pledges of military aid so far at a total 28 billion euros.
Both the French and the German agreements, valid for 10 years, underscore Paris and Berlin's intention to provide "long-term" military support to Ukrainian security.
They say Ukraine and its partners "will work together on ensuring a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring future aggression in the future."
In case of future Russian aggression, Germany, like France, "would provide Ukraine as appropriate, with swift and sustained security assistance" and modern military equipment as needed, as well as seeking agreement on imposing "economic and other costs on Russia," the agreements state.
They go on to state that Ukraine "will continue to implement an ambitious reform program," which is essential to its ambitions to join the European Union and NATO.
The agreements follow commitments by the Group of Seven most advanced economies, which include Germany, France and the U.K., at a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
Today, Zelenskyy is set to attend the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of high-ranking security and foreign policy officials, where he plans meetings with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, among others.
European allies are appealing to the U.S. Congress in recent days to approve a package that includes aid for Ukraine, a $60 billion allotment that would go largely to U.S. defense entities to manufacture missiles, munitions and other military hardware that are being sent to the battlefields in Ukraine. The package faces resistance from House Republicans.
Zelenskyy said he thinks the majority of the American population supports his country's cause. "I expect that the United States will not 'drop out,'" he said. "I expect that in all of this a pragmatic American approach to us, protecting the security of the world, will be found."
A German, Ukrainian and European flag wave in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, left, welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walk to a joint press conference in the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, front right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, front left, exchange documents in front of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, left, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, background centre, and German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, after the signing of a long-term security agreement between the two countries, at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Friday Feb. 16, 2024. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sign a treaty in the chancellory in Berlin, Friday, Feb.16, 2024. In background German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, center, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, left, German defence minister Boris Pistorius, right, and Ukraine's Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, left. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
French President Emmanuel Macron, right, welcomes his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy Friday, Feb. 16, 2024 at the Elysee Palace in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron will sign a bilateral security agreement with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy to provide "long-term support" to the war-ravaged country which has been battling Russia's full-scale invasion for nearly two years. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)