A group of 11 NATO member states that took part in a meeting in Estonia on Thursday aimed at increasing military aid to Ukraine agreed to provide it with new weapons and signed a joint statement asking other countries to step up aid to the Ukrainian army. especially with tanks and other heavy weapons, Reuters, EFE and Agerpres report.

The meeting of arms donors for Ukraine was held at the initiative of British Defense Minister Ben Wallace and his Estonian colleague Hanno Pevkur. The meeting took place at the Estonian military base Tapa, a day before an expanded meeting at the US military base Ramstein in Germany, where about 50 countries involved in military support to Ukraine will discuss and are expected to announce new arms supplies to Kyiv.

After Britain on Monday confirmed a new package of military aid to Ukraine, including 14 Challenger 2 tanks, howitzers, ammunition, armour, drones, guided and anti-aircraft missiles, Minister Wallace said in Estonia on Thursday that the aid would be supplemented by 600 more Brimstone missiles .

“I can say that we will send another 600 Brimstone missiles to the theater of operations, which will be incredibly important to help Ukraine dominate the battlefield,” said the British defense minister.

Estonia provides Ukraine with military aid of 1% of its GDP

For its part, after the same meeting, Denmark announced that it would transfer to Ukraine 19 Caesar howitzers, which it had ordered from France. Only a few of them have been delivered today.

Estonia also announced significant military aid, which will send Ukraine a new package of heavy artillery of 155 mm caliber, ammunition for 122 mm guns and anti-tank grenade launchers.

Thus, Estonia brought military aid to Ukraine to 1% of GDP and invited other EU countries to follow its example. At the press conference after the meeting, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that if the EU allocated 1% of its GDP for military aid to Ukraine, this aid would amount to about 150 billion euros.

Several countries will “probably” announce the shipment of Leopard tanks

Poland, for its part, announced that it would send anti-aircraft guns and 70,000 shells to Ukraine. At that time in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki mentioned the possibility of Poland offering Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine without waiting for a re-export agreement from Berlin.

His statement may put pressure on Germany to finally agree to the supply of such tanks to Ukraine, or at least to agree that other countries that have such tanks in their arsenals offer them to Kyiv. Ukraine’s persistent demand for Leopard tanks is a topic that will be at the center of Friday’s discussions at Ramstein.

According to Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas, several countries will “probably” announce on Friday the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, and in general, hundreds of armored vehicles will be promised to Kyiv at the meeting in Germany.

“Tallinn commitment”

The defense ministers of Great Britain, Lithuania and Estonia, as well as representatives of Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Poland and Latvia took part in the meeting in Estonia. The latter two countries also planned to have their defense ministers attend, but they were unable to make the trip due to weather conditions.

At the end of the meeting, the participating countries published a declaration that they called the “Tallinn Commitment”, the Estonian capital.

“We will continue to support Ukraine together in order to move from resistance to the expulsion of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine,” the text reads. For this, the signatories add, Ukraine needs “heavy tanks, anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems that operate together with artillery groups, as well as high-precision elements to defeat Russian logistics and management units in the occupied territory.”

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