The European Union’s head of foreign and security policy Josep Borrell has said he expects the bloc to agree a joint arms procurement deal for Ukraine on Monday.
I hope the foreign and defense ministers will jointly complete the agreement to supply ammunition to Ukraine,” he told reporters.
The top diplomat warned of “difficulty” in continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons if a “major decision” is not reached on Monday.
Some contexts: EU defense minister earlier this month provisionally agree a €2 billion ($2.1 billion) plan to buy 155mm artillery shells and send more shells to Ukraine from existing stockpiles of EU countries. A final decision is expected to be made on Monday on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers in Brussels.
Speaking in Stockholm on March 9, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said his country needed one million rounds “as soon as possible” to stop Russian forces.
The Russia-Ukraine war marks the first time the EU has provided lethal weapons to a third country, underscoring the level of threat the bloc believes Moscow poses to its security.
With the Ukraine war now in its second year, the EU – along with the US and UK, Kiev’s other two main backers – has reaffirmed its solidarity with Kiev.
That solidarity has translated into further commitments on military spending. In early February, the bloc announced that it would inject an additional 545 million euros ($575 million) into a 3.6 billion euro ($3.8 billion) military aid fund for Ukraine.
And in January, Germany, France, Poland and Britain agreed to supply modern battle tanks to Kiev, responding to a long-standing call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, despite concerns that such a move could fuel Western tensions with Russia.
