The EU will launch a joint purchase of artillery ammunition to help Ukraine

There is consensus on the importance of continue to urgently supply military equipmentand very specifically ammunition, for which we are going to explore different instruments within our reach, including the possible way of joint arms purchases that Estonia put on the table”, explained the head of Spanish diplomacy, Jose Manuel Albaresat the end of the meeting.

“We have been supplying ammunition to Ukraine for a year. The problem is that the nature of the war has changed. It is now a positional war, with artillery duels that consume much more ammunition than a few months ago, when it was a war of mobility, where fixed artillery had a lesser role”, the High Representative of the EU for the Common Foreign and Security Policy has justified.

[Borrell avisa de que Ucrania está en peligro si la UE no acelera el envío de municiones]

“The most important and pressing problem for the Ukrainian Army today is to have a continuous flow of 155 caliber ammunition (also 152 caliber, but 155 caliber is the most important). Russian artillery fires about 50,000 rounds a day. One day. Ukraine needs to be at the same level of capacity. They have cannons, but they lack ammunition,” Borrell alleges.

“It is the most urgent issue. If we fail in that, really, the outcome of the war is in jeopardy.”, stressed the head of European diplomacy, who considers that “the next few weeks will be crucial” for the outcome of the conflict. “Russia is amassing troops at the front: 350,000 Russian soldiers, almost double the number that were there at the start of the war. Russia is certainly unleashing another offensive and it will continue,” insisted the head of European diplomacy.

For all these reasons, Borrell calls on European governments to speed up the sending of military aid “until Ukraine wins.” “Time is of the essence, speed saves lives, we must respond soonnot only with more support but by supplying faster”, he insisted.

In this sense, the head of European diplomacy is committed to launching joint purchasing procedures at the European level in order to “increase the capacity of European industry to produce more and faster”. However, Borrell admits that manufacturing these munitions will take time, so the best solution short term is that the European governments share with Ukraine the ammunition that they have in reserve or that they have already contracted.

[Occidente se prepara para una guerra larga en Ucrania: “No es la hora del diálogo con Rusia”]

The idea of ​​joint purchase of ammunition for Ukraine came from Estonia. “Ukraine is running out of ammunition and the Estonian proposal is that we should initiate a pan-European purchasing system for the systematic delivery of 155 caliber ammunition to Ukraine. The goal should be to reach one million rounds, as requested by Ukraine, which would have a cost of around 4,000 million euros“, explained his foreign minister, Urmas Reinsalu.

“The ammunition that Russia uses every day, the EU takes a month to produce. With the current capabilities of the industry, it would take us six years to meet the needs of Ukraine and this is totally unacceptable”, insists the head of Estonian diplomacy. The final decision is expected to be taken by the Defense Ministers of the Twenty-seven in their meeting on March 7 and 8 in Stockholm.

For the rest, the foreign ministers have failed to close the agreement on the tenth package of sanctions against Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Poland and the Baltics claim to toughen the Brussels proposal to also include diamonds and the nuclear industry. For their part, Germany or Spain are asking for new explicit exemptions for the transit of agricultural products and fertilizers from Russia in order to avoid a world famine.

Borrell has been convinced that the new sanctions will be approved before February 24, one year after the outbreak of the war. The head of EU diplomacy has also praised the Joe Biden’s surprise visit to kyivwhich in his opinion is a “clear demonstration of transatlantic unity and the determination to continue supporting Ukraine together.”