This was never going to be a meeting that would end fighting on the ground in Ukraine. Weapons for defense today and investment for rebuilding tomorrow were the order of the day at Berlin's recovery conference.

Ukraine will need billions of dollars to rebuild, with the best estimate from the World Bank putting the number at a shade under half a trillion dollars. What Kyiv and conference headline guest Volodymyr Zelenskyy hoped to drum up in the German capital was investment from the major financial institutions of Europe and the world. 

There was also a ramping up of the Ukrainian President's aim of seeing his country become a member of the European Union. Zelenskyy told the gathered delegates that his country had done everything to get EU accession talks started.

That was a sentiment backed up by EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen who said she wanted to see the formal accession process started in the coming weeks. She also made major financial promises to Kyiv, including $1.5 billion to be made available after an agreement with European banks. 

A further sum of just under $2 billion will be transferred to Ukraine by the end of this month, and Kyiv will also benefit from the interest that has been earned on frozen Russian assets held inside the EU.

Von Der Leyen, currently in the running for a second term as Commission President, told reporters: "We must help Ukraine to rise from the ashes and to be the master of its own future. This means, first and foremost, that we must provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself."

The delivery of more weapon systems was also agreed upon in Berlin, with German defense minister Boris Pistorius saying that a further 100 Patriot air defense missiles had been agreed for sending to Ukraine in a joint scheme involving cooperation with Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Getting energy supplies up and running in Ukraine in the future was a big part of the conference. Zelenskyy said his country needed a whole new energy infrastructure because "Ukraine is suffering from the most destructive form of the Russian view of energy as a weapon."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was important that European private enterprise could see a future in Ukraine and that there must be a viable business case for investing. He cited Ukraine's potential in renewables, pharmaceuticals, and information technology. 

Scholz made the case for sending more air defense systems to Ukrainian cities, saying: "The best kind of reconstruction is the one that doesn't have to happen at all."

Zelenskyy also addressed the Bundestag on Tuesday. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) and left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) boycotted the speech in which the Ukrainian leader warned against freezing the conflict lest his country be divided by a wall. Zelenskyy made reference to the Berlin Wall, which divided the German Capital between 1961 and 1989.

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