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Nordic and Baltic countries have said they will jointly fund a $500 million (€430 million) package of military equipment and munitions for Ukraine, NATO announced on Thursday.
The kit, purchased by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden, will be sourced from the United States and purchased under NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative.
“Our Nordic and Baltic Allies are stepping up to fund a further package of critical military equipment for Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said.
“This equipment is extremely important as Ukraine enters the winter months and deliveries through PURL are flowing into Ukraine. NATO Allies will continue to deliver essential equipment and supplies.”
The PURL initiative was launched in July by Rutte and US President Donald Trump and came following criticism from the White House that Europe needed to shoulder more of the responsibility for Ukraine’s security.
The new financial arrangement sees 17 mostly European allies buy US-made weapons, which are then transferred to Ukraine. It aims to ensure a predictable flow of lethal and non-lethal support, including air defence.
PURL is key to enacting Europe and Canada’s commitment to taking on the majority share of the burden for Ukraine’s security as it continues to defend itself from Russia’s full-scale invasion.
New data on Western military aid to Ukraine shows that it plunged by 43% in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks defence and financial support to Kyiv.
“We will get some package from PURL, air defence – it’s not only offensive. We are buying missiles and air defences to save energy,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Thursday.
Von der Leyen: ‘Putin thinks he can outlast us’
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday the EU would disburse a €6 billion loan to Ukraine and promised more money for Kyiv.
“We will cover the financial needs of Ukraine for the next two years,” she said in a speech to the European Parliament.
The EU and other foreign partners have continued investing in Ukraine as the country faces yet another winter in Russia’s nearly four-year all-out war. Russia has relentlessly bombarded the power grid ahead of winter, leaving it in need of extensive repairs.
The EU is looking into how it can raise more funds for Ukraine, either by seizing frozen Russian assets, raising funds on capital markets, or having some of the 27 EU nations raise it themselves.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “thinks he can outlast us,” von der Leyen said.
“And this is a clear miscalculation,” she said. “Now is therefore the moment to come, with a new impetus, to unlock Putin’s cynical attempt to buy time and bring him to the negotiation table.”
Additional sources • AP