(Washington) Twenty countries pledged to provide additional weapons to Ukraine to deal with Russian forces at a meeting of allies on Monday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced.
Posted at 2:44 p.m.
“Today’s meeting went very well,” he said. “Many countries will donate much needed artillery ammunition, coastal defense systems, tanks and other armor” to the Kyiv army, he added.
In this second meeting of the “Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine”, 44 countries came together virtually to discuss military assistance to Ukraine at this stage of the conflict.
The Ukrainian Minister of Defense briefed the participants on the current military situation, three months after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Among the equipment to be delivered to Ukraine, Denmark has notably undertaken to send a Harpoon anti-ship missile system.
Photo NICHOLAS KAMM, Agence France-Presse
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
The Harpoon is usually carried on board warships or submarines, but Denmark is the only country to have acquired the modified version of this missile launcher, which is installed on trucks and thus becomes a coastal defense battery .
The Czech Republic, for its part, has pledged to supply attack helicopters, tanks and missiles.
Since the first meeting of the contact group last month in Germany, “the pace of donations and deliveries has been exceptional”, welcomed Mr. Austin.
But the US Secretary of Defense refrained from specifying the armaments that the United States would provide to Ukraine after the approval by Congress of additional aid to Ukraine of 40 billion dollars.
However, he noted that Ukraine’s needs have not changed at this stage: artillery, tanks, drones and ammunition.
“Everyone here understands the stakes of this war, and they go far beyond Europe,” he added. “Russian aggression is an affront to the international order.”
This contact group is due to meet in person on June 15 in Brussels, on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO ministers.