{"id":501763,"date":"2025-10-15T15:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501763\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:11:12","slug":"germany-pledges-big-military-aid-package-to-ukraine-as-kyiv-puts-2026-defense-needs-at-120-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501763\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany pledges big military aid package to Ukraine as Kyiv puts 2026 defense needs at $120 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Germany on Wednesday pledged more than $2 billion in military aid for Ukraine, as the government in Kyiv signaled that it would need $120 billion in 2026 to stave off Russia\u2019s nearly four-year all-out war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Germany would buy $500 million worth of U.S. weapons for Ukraine under a new program to fast-track military equipment. Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden said that they would also participate in the funding initiative.<\/p>\n

Pistorius said that Germany\u2019s \u201cpackage addresses a number of urgent requirements of Ukraine. It provides air defense systems, Patriot (missile) interceptors, radar systems and precision guided artillery, rockets and ammunition.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Germany would separately provide \u201canother two Iris-T air defense systems, including a large number of guided missiles, as well as shoulder-fired air defense missiles.\u201d Anti-tank weapons, communication devices and hand-held weapons would also be delivered.<\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s fast-track funding program<\/p>\n

Over the summer, the trans-Atlantic alliance started to coordinate regular deliveries of large weapons packages to Ukraine to help fend off Russia\u2019s war. The aim was to send at least one load a month of targeted and predictable military support, each worth around $500 million.<\/p>\n

Spare weapons stocks in European arsenals have all but dried up, and only the United States has a sufficient store of ready weapons that Ukraine most needs.<\/p>\n

Under the financial arrangement<\/a> \u2014 known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL \u2014 European allies and Canada are buying American weapons to help Kyiv keep Russian forces at bay. About $2 billion worth had previously been allocated since August.<\/p>\n

Finland\u2019s defense minister, Antti H\u00e4kk\u00e4nen, said that his country has \u201cdecided to join the PURL, because we see that it\u2019s crucial that Ukraine gets the critical U.S. weapons.\u201d Finland will also provide a separate package of its own military equipment.<\/p>\n

Swedish Defense Minister P\u00e5l Jonson said that \u201cSweden stands ready to do more.\u201d He welcomed discussions among other Nordic countries and the Baltic nations \u2014 Estonia and Lithuania \u2014 on helping to make up another load too.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s striking needs for 2026<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s pledge came after a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, as Ukraine\u2019s Western backers gathered to drum up more military support for their beleaguered partner.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal put his country\u2019s defense needs next year at $120 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine will cover half, 60 billion, from our national resources. We are asking partners to join us in covering the other half,\u201d he said. He said that \u201cthe most efficient, effective, fast\u201d way for Kyiv\u2019s backers to do that would be \u201cto dedicate no less than 0.25% of their GDP (gross domestic product) to military support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Air defense systems are most in need. Shmyhal said that last month alone, Russia \u201claunched over 5,600 strike drones and more than 180 missiles targeting our civilian infrastructure and people. Therefore, on the eve of winter, it is very critical to provide us with necessary equipment to repel such attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dwindling support<\/p>\n

The new pledges of support came a day after new data showed that foreign military aid<\/a> to Ukraine had declined sharply recently. Despite the PURL program, support plunged by 43% in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany\u2019s Kiel Institute, which tracks such deliveries and funding.<\/p>\n

Jonson said that Sweden believes its aid \u201cis critical now, because we\u2019ve been seeing the wrong trajectory when it comes to support to Ukraine, that it\u2019s been going down and we want to see more stepping up.\u201d <\/p>\n

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur also expressed concern about a drop in Western backing, noting that \u201cthe reality is that the share of the U.S. contributions to Ukraine has decreased significantly this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that \u201call countries need to translate goals into guns, commitments into capabilities and pledges into power. That\u2019s all that matters. Hard power. It\u2019s the only thing belligerents actually respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration hasn\u2019t donated military equipment to Ukraine. It has been weighing whether to send Tomahawk<\/a> long-range missiles if Russia doesn\u2019t wind down its war soon, but it remains unclear who will pay for those weapons, should they ever be approved.<\/p>\n

Sharing the burden<\/p>\n

Criticism has mounted that France, Italy and Spain aren\u2019t doing enough to help Ukraine, and H\u00e4kk\u00e4nen called on all 32 NATO allies to take on their \u201cfair share of the burden,\u201d saying that \u201ceveryone has to find the money because this is a crucial moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

France and Italy are mired in debt and struggling to raise money just to meet NATO\u2019s defense spending targets<\/a>. Spain says it has other economic concerns and insists that it makes up for its spending gap at NATO by deploying troops on the alliance\u2019s missions.<\/p>\n

France also believes that European money should be spent on Europe\u2019s defense industry, not in the United States, and it doesn\u2019t intend to take part in PURL.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of the war at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Germany on Wednesday pledged more than $2 billion in military aid for Ukraine, as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[7668,51,32,2000,299,164498,14307,16831,4179,1824,36201,7666,8617,2821,56247,602,7661,812,45137,657,7662,7660,10673,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-501763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-boris-pistorius","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-finland-government","14":"tag-foreign-aid","15":"tag-france-government","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-germany-government","19":"tag-hanno-pevkur","20":"tag-military-and-defense","21":"tag-nato","22":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","23":"tag-pete-hegseth","24":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","25":"tag-sweden","26":"tag-sweden-government","27":"tag-ukraine","28":"tag-ukraine-government","29":"tag-war-and-unrest","30":"tag-washington-news","31":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115378827063631607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}