EU military support to Ukraine now exceeds €43 billion and rising

EU military support to Ukraine now exceeds €43 billion, and is rising every day, EU High Representative Josep Borrell told a press conference today after an informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers in Brussels.

“Altogether, civilian and military [support]… is about €100 billion. But the military alone is €43 [billion], €44 [billion], it changes every day,” he said. 

He added that the EU had now reached 65% of its original goal to deliver 1 million ammunition shells to Ukraine. “There has been an acceleration during the summer. The industry is working at full pace.”

“From the point of view of financing, we have mobilised the first tranche of windfall profits from Russian frozen assets,” he added. “These €1.4 billion have gone through the European Peace Facility (EPF) to support more military assistance for Ukraine. The big news is that now part of it is going directly to Ukraine in order to boost the Ukrainian defence industry.” 

Borrell said the EU Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) had been a great success: “It is the most successful training mission that the European Union has ever performed. It has trained [some] 60,000 soldiers. And today, the Ministers agreed on raising the target to 75,000 [soldiers] – adding 15,000 more by the end of the year.”

Reiterating his position that there should be no restrictions on the use of long-range military equipment supplied by EU partners to respond to Russia’s aggression inside Russian territory, the EU High Representative said Member States had decided this was a decision that belongs to each Member State providing the equipment to Ukraine. “There has been a strategic discussion about [this], but it remains a national policy and Member States want it to be a national decision through bilateral [arrangements] with Ukraine.”