The US and Ukraine signed off Thursday on a 10-year security agreement, with the leaders of the Group of Seven nations pledging to arrange a $50 billion loan to the war-torn nation.

The security deal, signed by President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a joint news conference on the sidelines of the annual G7 summit in southern Italy, will boost weapons-production cooperation, provide other military assistance and increase intelligence sharing.

The agreement also commits the Pentagon to another decade of training Ukraine’s armed forces.

“We’ve taken three major steps at the G7 that collectively show [Russian President Vladimir] Putin he cannot wait us out, he cannot divide us, and we’ll be with Ukraine until they prevail in this war,” said Biden, 81. 

“First is the bilateral security agreement just signed. Second, the historic agreement to provide $50 billion in value from Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine, and third an agreement to ensure our sanctions efforts disrupt third countries that are supplying Russia’s war efforts.” 

The US also announced a fresh military aid package for Kyiv valued at $225 million, which includes “air-defense interceptors; artillery systems and munitions; armored vehicles; and anti-tank weapons,” according to the White House.

Funding for the package will come out of the $60 billion Congress allocated to Ukraine defense spending as part of a supplemental funding bill approved in April.

The US is also expected to announce that it is sending Kyiv a second Patriot missile system, which Zelensky has said is critical to his country’s defense against Russian air and missile strikes on civilian infrastructure.

“All our other partners, they know that urgently we need seven Patriot systems to save our cities – not all of them, we’d still need more – but urgently seven,” the Ukrainian leader said Thursday. “And we discussed the possibility of having five of them … and the partners work on it.”

“It doesn’t mean that tomorrow we will have these five systems, but we see in the closest future, good result for Ukraine,” he added

Though the official announcement of the Patriot donation did not come Thursday, Biden and Zelensky said that the US has worked to secure commitments from unnamed countries to provide five additional Patriot missile systems to Ukraine in the near future.

Biden met with Zelensky just two days before the start of the 90-nation Ukraine Peace Summit in Lucerne, Switzerland. 

The US president is skipping out on the event, which aims to develop a path to the end of the war with Russia, to attend a Hollywood fundraiser hosted by George Clooney on Saturday. 

Vice President Kamala Harris will represent the US at the conference.

Biden, whose general-election rival Donald Trump is vowing to personally negotiate an end to the war if he wins on Nov. 5, used his joint press conference with Zelensky as a moment to underscore US support for Kyiv.

“Two and a half years ago, Putin unleashed a brutal war in Ukraine and it’s been a horrifying deal for the Ukrainian people, who are so brave and incredible,” Biden said.

“It also been a test for the world: Would we stand with Ukraine? Would we stand for sovereignty, freedom and against tyranny? The United States, the G7 and countries around the world have consistently answered the question by saying, ‘Yes, we will.’ We will say it again, ‘Yes’, again and again and again, we’re gonna stand with Ukraine.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan will join Harris in representing the United States at the upcoming peace conference. 

Meanwhile, the G7 — which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the US and the European Union — announced the broad outlines of the $50 billion loan, which would be mostly guaranteed by Washington and backed by profits earned on roughly $260 billion in immobilized Russian assets — the vast majority of which are held by European nations.

The loan, which a French official told the Associated Press could be “topped up” with European money or contributions from other countries, is due to be officially announced Friday.

The US and its allies immediately froze whatever Russian central bank assets they had access to when Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. However, the assets still belong to Russia and rendering them forfeit for Ukraine’s benefit would require a legal basis and time-consuming court proceedings.

In April, Congress passed and Biden signed into law the so-called REPO Act — short for Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act — that allows the White House to seize $5 billion in Russian state assets in the US and use them for the benefit of Kyiv.

With Post wires