WATCH: Ukraine’s Zelensky calls on Biden to lift US restrictions on attacks on Russian military targets

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday hailed the support of allies who have provided major new aid and a path to NATO membership, even as he pushed hard for faster aid arrival and for lifting restrictions on the use of American weapons to attack military targets in Russia.

Watch Biden and Zelensky’s remarks in the player above.

“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save and defend our country, we must lift all restrictions,” Zelensky said alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the final hours of a summit at which Ukraine was given new pledges of military aid to strengthen its defense against Russia.

Earlier that day, President Joe Biden announced a new military aid package and promised Zelensky: “We will stay by your side, period.”

Although Zelenskyj publicly thanked NATO heads of state and government for the package and for their promise that Ukraine was now on an “irreversible path” to membership in the military alliance, he also sounded the alarm: Ukraine could not win the war against Russia, which is now in its third year, if the US did not lift restrictions on the use of its weapons against military targets in Russia.

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The Biden administration allows Ukraine to launch weapons into Russian territory only for the purpose of retaliating against Russian forces that attack it or are preparing to attack it. It fears that the increased use of American-made weapons could provoke Russia into expanding the war.

But Zelensky is pushing for greater leeway so that US weapons could also be used to attack key military bases and facilities deeper into Russian territory.

Calls for the restrictions to be lifted have grown louder in recent months, following Russia’s military successes at a time when political power struggles in the United States have delayed vital military support for Ukraine.

Stoltenberg and French President Emmanuel Macron support Ukraine’s efforts to gain more room to use US-supplied weapons. When we tell the Ukrainians, “You have no right to reach the point from which the missiles are launched, we are telling them that we are supplying you with weapons, but you cannot defend yourself,” Macron said in May.

Stoltenberg argued on Thursday that the war had changed since its early days, when fighting took place deeper into Ukrainian territory.

“Since Russia opened a new front, the only way to hit military targets, military launch pads or airfields attacking Ukraine is to attack military targets on Russian territory,” he said.

READ MORE: Jens Stoltenberg concludes his last summit as NATO Secretary General

Ukraine was the focus of attention among European and North American leaders at the summit of the 75-year-old military alliance. The situation was overshadowed by concerns about growing support for the Russian invasion from China and North Korea. The meeting also took place in a turbulent political cycle in the US, with Democrats increasingly concerned about whether Biden can stay in office for another four years.

Later Thursday, all eyes will be on Biden when he wraps up the summit of 32 NATO leaders in Washington with a press conference. It will give him a new chance to prove to the American public that he is capable of serving another term after his shocking debate flop left the future of his presidency in doubt.

In a one-on-one meeting with Zelensky earlier in the day, Biden touted the military aid package as his eighth since taking office. The latest includes $225 million in support, including an additional Patriot missile system to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses against deadly Russian airstrikes.

The Patriot air defense system, the second the U.S. has delivered to Ukraine, is one of several announced at the NATO summit this week and is part of a flurry of pledges to supply weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks, including one of the deadliest of the war this week, which struck a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

The devastating missile attack on the eve of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit made it clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin may not be ready to make peace for some time.

Commenting on NATO allies’ claims that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, which Putin chairs, said Moscow should do everything “to ensure that this irreversible path of Ukraine to NATO leads to the disappearance of either Ukraine or NATO, or better yet, to both.”

Although NATO leaders have promised that Ukraine will one day be a member of the alliance, accession will only be possible after the war with Russia and when all allies agree that Ukraine has fulfilled all conditions.

On Thursday, Zelensky also attended a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council with the Allied leaders. This forum, which was established a year ago, brings together the 32 allies and Kyiv on an equal footing to exchange concerns and information.

In addition to offers of more military support, NATO has launched a new program to finance the supply of military equipment and training for the beleaguered Ukrainian armed forces. NATO members have also committed to maintaining the current military aid – around 40 billion euros annually – for at least one year.

The latest events at the NATO summit come a day after NATO called China a “key enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine. China, in turn, accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and warned the Western military alliance against bringing the same “chaos” to Asia.

AP reporters Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Rebecca Santana in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.