THE European Union finalizes within the week a plan with an estimated cost of 2 billion euros to jointly purchase ammunition for the artillery, which the Ukraine desperately needed to counter her army’s onslaught of Russia.
This plan is expected to allow them to be handed over to the Ukrainian armed forces at least one million 155mm shells and to replenish the strategic stocks of EU countriessome of which are on the verge of exhaustion.
“We don’t have white smoke yet,” a European official confided yesterday Sunday. “Member states, the Netherlands and Italy, still have reservations, but there is no blocking,” he added, an agreement is expected “in the Councils of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Ministers of Defense” today in Brussels and the agreement will then be put to the approval of the leaders of the 27 at their meeting on Thursday and Friday.
The EU is responding with the plan to an urgent appeal made on March 9 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose forces are seeing their firepower limited by a lack of ammunition.
“We have entered the most dangerous phase of the war. The Russians have amassed over 300,000 fighters to launch an attack and we need to help Ukrainian forces fight back,” a senior European official explained.
Rearmament of the EU
THE Russian President Vladimir Putin organized a meeting in Rostov-on-Don (southern Russia), not far from the Ukrainian border, with top officers of his army, notably Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
“Time is pressing: we need to deliver more ammunition for the artillery and we need to do it faster,” he insists Giuseppe Borelthe head of EU diplomacy.
It asks the Member States to make available for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine 2 billion euros allocated in December to the European Peace Mechanism, a fund used since the outbreak of war to deliver arms and ammunition to Kiev.
One billion euros will be spent to replenish member states’ ammunition stocks, at 1,000 to 1,300 euros per shell, he clarified. For each shell 4,000 euros are spent to date and the prices are rising.
“The Ukrainians want ammunition for their artillery and missiles for their air defense and the EU will deliver it to them,” said a member state official. The agreement foresees deliveries on May 31, he clarified.
The level of stocks is a military secret, but “we believe there is still ammunition left and we seek to encourage its surrender” in Ukraine, according to the senior European official.
The second billion will be spent on the joint purchase of 155 mm shells intended for the Ukrainian artillery. The contracts are scheduled for September and the aim is to reduce delivery times to 6 to 8 months.
The third aspect of Mr Borel’s plan aims to increase the production capabilities of the more than ten companies that produce artillery ammunition in the EU, in order to “replenish EU countries’ stocks and continue supplying Ukrainian forces”.
The war “will last”
“This war it has a tendency to last and the needs of the Ukrainian forces are very great,” explained a European diplomat. “The EU must be rearmed”he insisted.
“The goal of delivering at least one million 155mm shells to Ukraine is something that there is broad consensus on,” the European diplomat assured.
“Destockings and deliveries are permanent”, the member state representative explained. “We don’t know everything that the member states are doing, not all of them ask us (money to) replenish their stocks”, admits the services of Giuseppe Borrell.
European military aid to Ukraine is estimated to have reached 12 billion euros, of which 3.6 billion through the European Peace Facility, which is 63% financed with contributions from Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
The Europeans will also have trained 15,000 Ukrainian military personnel as of “the end of April,” according to a program official.
An agreement in principle for new financing with 3.5 billion euros to fill the coffers of the Mechanism is considered a given and “the discussion can start from this week, according to the European official. “Let’s go,” insisted the European diplomat.
Source: News Beast
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