On Thursday, 18 June, members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) reaffirmed their military support for the country by announcing their latest financial contributions.
According to Ukrainian Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov, the total amount announced reportedly came to $4 billion—“maybe more”.
Once again, the UDCG co-chairs—Germany and the United Kingdom—led by example.
German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius thus announced, “We will deliver a three-digit number of air-to-air missiles from our own stocks, and we have agreed to provide $200 million for the procurement of additional PAC-3 guided missiles under the JUMPSTART programme. This means we will co-fund the first delivery tranche.” The minister also announced a $200 million contribution to the PURL initiative.
Mykhailo Fedorov announced that the Netherlands had pledged support for more than 700 cruise missiles. Sweden announced a $100 million contribution to a new support package as part of PURL, along with Norway and Canada.
According to a NATO source, 25 Allies and three partners have already pledged nearly $6 billion towards PURL.
Dan Jarvis, the new British defence minister, specified that his country would provide 150,000 Ukrainian-made drones as well as more than 350 air defence missiles and radars, “all of which will be delivered by the end of the year as part of a package worth £750 million funded by the sale of seized Russian assets through the ERA loan programme.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte specified that Latvia, Denmark, Lithuania, Norway, Luxembourg, Croatia, Iceland, and Australia also announced additional support for Ukraine.
Opening the meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had reiterated that his country did “not [have] enough” unmanned ground vehicles or long-range artillery ammunition. “We need both urgently. The funding being allocated [...] is not enough. [...] What the Ukrainian army is receiving is not enough. But we can increase all of these. The capacity is there,” he believes. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)