France, Germany, Poland to hold talks on Ukraine in Berlin

The leaders of France, Germany and Poland will hold urgent talks on Ukraine in Berlin on Friday, Warsaw and Berlin said, as they seek to scrape together additional support for Kyiv.

The talks come on the heels of a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Polish leaders in Washington, shortly after the U.S. leader announced an emergency stopgap package for Ukraine.

"On Friday... I will be in Berlin with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to talk about this situation," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told state broadcaster TVP late Tuesday from Washington.

The meeting was an "emergency and unplanned" summit of the Weimar Triangle, a diplomatic format for French, German and Polish cooperation established in 1991.

Poland, one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, has repeatedly urged its Western partners to up their spending on military aid as Kyiv fends off a Russian invasion.

"In my opinion, these three capitals have the task and the power to mobilize all of Europe" to provide Ukraine with fresh aid, Tusk said.

Relations between the allies have been strained by Germany's refusal to send long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, despite urgent calls from Kyiv.

The issue has been a particular source of tension between Scholz and Macron, who had pointedly urged allies not to be "cowards" in supporting Ukraine.

The German and French leaders would have a bilateral meeting in Berlin before the three-way summit with Tusk, Scholz's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said at a regular press conference Wednesday.

Scholz and Macron had "talked to each other at length on the phone" in recent days, Hebestreit said.

The chancellor has not however changed his position on the delivery of Taurus missiles. Scholz argues that the deployment of the long-range missiles would involve German soldiers directly in the conflict and therefore risk an escalation.

The issue centered on "where will be targeted... where will be hit", Scholz said in the German parliament on Wednesday.

"That should not happen with German soldiers," Scholz said.

"I have the responsibility to prevent Germany from becoming involved in this war," he said.