Still there. The European Union will provide additional military aid of 500 million euros to Ukraine to help it defend against the Russian invasion, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday. EU funding to support the Ukrainian military effort "will thus be increased to 2 billion euros in total" since the start of the war on February 24, he added in a statement to Wangels, in northern Germany, where the heads of G7 diplomacy are meeting until Saturday.

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As announced a few weeks ago, Europe will therefore honor its promise to provide a total of 1 billion euros in aid to arm kyiv. From the start of the conflict, like the Americans, the Europeans had already released 500 million euros. This funding, which with this Friday's announcement will therefore be doubled, from the "European Peace Facility", a fund endowed with 5 billion euros created and supplemented by the Member States outside the Community budget.

The use of funding is decided unanimously, but governments have the option of resorting to “constructive abstention” so as not to block the decision. This option offered to countries that cannot agree to deliver weapons to a country at war made it possible to release an initial envelope of 500 million euros at the end of February.

Russian anger

The money from the “European Peace Facility” is used to reimburse the supplies of armaments taken by the Member States from their stocks. “The equipment must appear on the list of armaments requested by Ukraine and the reimbursements are retroactive to January 1, 2022”, explained a European official responsible for the management of this financial facility.

The Ukrainian government has already made very specific demands for equipment that the fighters are able to use, including air defense systems and anti-tank weapons that have been successfully used to halt the advance of Russian troops and deprive them of air supremacy. Then, the armaments are transported in a coordinated way to Poland, which has agreed to be the hub of military aid to the Ukrainian government and they are then transported to Ukraine.

On the ground, the previous deliveries of weapons from the West, largely American thanks to XXL aid (already 14 billion dollars but which should be increased to 40), are already not making themselves felt and the Ukrainian army is now doing more than resist the Russian forces. So much so that Moscow regularly raises its voice to prevent this aid to the kyiv regime from having consequences on the scope of the conflict. This Friday morning again, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, accused the EU of having become “aggressive and bellicose”.