Ukraine has reached a 10-year deal with France for the supply of 100 Rafale fighter jets to bolster its defenses as the Kremlin said it hopes for a new summit with the United States to discuss a possible resolution to end the war in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on November 17 where they agreed to the deal as Russian forces intensify air strikes around the country and make advances in the east.
"It will be the greatest air defense, one of the greatest in the world," Zelenskyy said after agreeing to the deal for the twin-engine aircraft.
The Elysee said the deal also includes air-defense systems, bombs, and drones -- new equipment not coming from current stocks in the French armed forces.
The deal comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this month that Sweden and Ukraine were close to clinching financing for a deal that could see Kyiv buy up to 150 Gripen fourth-generation fighter planes.
Ukraine has long sought to build up its defense systems in the air to blunt Russia's superiority in Europe's biggest and deadliest conflict since the end of World War II.
While Zelenskyy was in Paris signing the deal -- he travels onward to Spain on November 18 -- the Kremlin once again said it hopes to arrange a second summit between President Vladimir Putin and US leader Donald Trump.
The two met in Alaska in August in a bid to jumpstart stalled peace negotiations to end the war. But the talks failed to produce a breakthrough.
The US sanctions on Russia's energy giants came after several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations between the United States and Russia, which at one point were expected to be discussed at a proposed Budapest summit.
Shortly after a conversation between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Trump said he was not going "to be wasting time" meeting with Putin if the Kremlin leader was not ready to make a deal to end his war on Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on November 17 that a summit could take place as soon as the necessary preparations had been completed, a stance he has reiterated several times recently.
"We can hardly predict now when these conditions will arise. Although, of course, we are all interested in these conditions occurring sooner rather than later," he said.
"Therefore, as soon as this preparation is completed and the conditions for holding the summit are in place, we hope it will take place."
Western media had largely reported that there has been little change in Russia's stance on ending the conflict since Trump's meeting with Putin in Alaska in August, which didn't result in a cease-fire.
On November 8, Trump said he still didn't see Russia as willing to stop the fighting, though he still prefers Budapest as the venue for a peace summit once the conditions for such a meeting are met.
Trump said on November 16 that he is open to new congressional sanctions that would be aimed at "any country that does business with Russia."
He gave no further details.
