Romania is a participant in a EU plan to replenish national ammunition stocks and supply Ukraine.
On Monday the European Union approved a EUR 2 bln plan to procure and supply ammunition to Ukraine, sources in Brussels announced. The 3-stage plan is designed to supply Ukrainian forces with at least one million 155-millimeter artillery shells in the coming 12 months, and to replenish member states’ stockpiles, some of which are depleting quickly.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the meeting of his EU counterparts via conference call, has welcomed the support. „More artillery ammunition for Ukraine as fast as possible. This will bolster Ukraine’s capabilities on the battlefield,” Kuleba said in a Twitter post.
The plan, which is to be signed off by EU leaders at the summit on March 23-24, answers an urgent request made by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy early this month.
EUR 1 bln will be used to reimburse EU members that immediately supply Ukraine with ammunition from their own existing stockpiles, at EUR 1,000-1,300 per shell. The current price for such ammunition is EUR 4,000 and growing. Another EUR 1 bln will be used to place joint ammunition orders for Ukraine.
The contracts are due in September, and the goal is to shorten the deadline for purchase and delivery to 6-8 months.
A third stage of the plan concerns increasing production capacities with 12 EU weapons producers, to restock member states and to carry on supplying the Ukrainian forces. The EUR 2 bln will be earmarked under the European Peace Facility, an inter-government fund created by the member states outside of the EU budget and used since the start of the war to supply weapons to Ukraine.
Seventeen of the 27 member states, plus Norway, will take part in the programme in a first stage, and Romania is one of them. It is a historic decision, said the EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell, who came up with the initiative. The framework, outlined by the European Defence Agency, is flexible and allows us to replenish national military stockpiles and to help Ukraine, he emphasised.
Also on Monday, the US announced authorising a further USD 350 million in military aid to Ukraine, which includes ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS and howitzers. „Russia alone could end its war today. Until Russia does, we will stand united with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” the US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Monday.
(Eugen Coroianu, Radio Romania International)
