EU countries agreed on Monday to increase by 3.5 billion euros the maximum value of the fund used to finance military aid to Ukraine, raising its ceiling to more than 12 billion euros, Reuters reports.

EU sources said last week that the bloc’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, asked governments to raise the financial ceiling of the European Peace Fund (EPF), which has already allocated around 4.6 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine.

“Today’s decision once again ensures that we have the necessary funds to continue to provide concrete military support to the armed forces of our partners,” Borrell said, according to a news release.

“The mechanism has proven its usefulness. It has completely changed the way we support our defense partners. This makes the EU and its partners stronger,” he said.

The EPF, set up in 2021, was designed for the EU to help developing countries buy military equipment. But the 27-member alliance quickly decided to also use it to get weapons for Ukraine after Russia invaded last February.

The fund is separate from the EU budget, which does not have the right to finance military operations. This allows EU countries that supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine to demand the return of part of the costs. EU countries contribute to this fund according to the size of their economy.

Borrell’s statement came after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, also on Monday, called on the European Union to “accelerate the defeat of Russia” by increasing its support for Ukraine.

Kuleba, who took part in the meeting of EU foreign ministers, noted on Twitter that the fact that tanks were moving towards Moscow during the failed coup shows that “Ukraine will win.”

“At the EAC (Foreign Affairs Council), we called on the EU to accelerate the defeat of Russia by increasing support for Ukraine,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.