The European Union (EU) is preparing to dedicate up to €20 billion ($22.4 billion) over the next four years to ensure Ukraine’s military remains stocked amid growing concerns from Western nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, over their increasingly depleting munitions reserves.
The military fund will become “part of the EU’s broader efforts to show its long-term commitment to Ukraine,” reports POLITICO.
The EU will not pay for Ukrainian weapons directly, however, opting to remunerate individual nations that manufacture, purchase, and donate their own weapons to the Ukrainian forces such as “ammunition, missiles and tanks.”
“Our level of support to Ukraine in the military is now so high, that money allocated to the European Peace Facility for Ukraine will be soon exhausted,” stated one anonymous senior EU official about the plans. However, the EU’s support to Ukraine is still roughly half that of the United States, which has provided roughly 70 percent of all the military, financial, and humanitarian aid given to Ukraine.
The EU’s proposal follows another recent European pledge to Ukraine to provide a further €50 billion ($56 billion) in “non-military assistance” between 2024 and 2027. “Ukraine is bravely fighting Russia’s invasion and needs our stable financial support to face the tremendous costs this entails. The EU has promised to stand by its side as long as it takes and we are true to our word,” stated European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen after announcing the aid.
