Brussels
\nEuropean Union foreign ministers agreed Monday on a two-billion-euro plan to raid their own arsenals and jointly purchase desperately needed artillery shells for Ukraine, diplomats said.
\nMeeting in Brussels, the ministers backed a multipronged initiative — to be endorsed by EU leaders at a summit this week — that aims to provide Ukraine with one million shells in the next 12 months as well as replenish EU stocks.
\nKyiv has complained that its forces are having to ration firepower as Russia\u2019s year-long invasion has turned into a grinding war of attrition.
\nUkraine has told the EU it wants 350,000 shells a month to help its troops hold back Moscow\u2019s onslaught and allow them to launch fresh counter-offensives later in the year.
\n\u201cMore artillery ammunition for Ukraine as fast as possible,\u201d Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged in a social media post.
\nFrance\u2019s Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna insisted \u201cwe have to help Ukraine more, quicker and now.\u201d
\nThe first part of the plan commits a further one billion euros ($1.06 billion) of shared funding to try to get EU states to tap their already stretched stocks for ammunition that can be sent quickly.
\nThe second part would see the bloc use another one billion euros to order 155-millimetre shells for Ukraine as part of a massive joint procurement push intended to spur EU defence firms to ramp up production.
\nBuying weaponry together on this scale is a major new step for the EU, which has seen long-standing efforts to work more in unison on defence propelled forward by Russia\u2019s war.
\nCountries have been wrangling over details, like whether it should be the EU\u2019s defence agency or the member states who negotiate the orders and if they should buy only from producers in Europe.
\nDiplomats said the plan targets sending the first one billion euro\u2019s worth of shells to Ukraine by the end of May and signing the joint contracts by the start of September.
\nLithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the ambition was to supply one million rounds over the next year, but it was not set in stone.
\n\u201cIt is possible that we might not be able to reach it,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brussels European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday on a two-billion-euro plan to raid their own arsenals and jointly purchase desperately needed artillery shells for Ukraine, diplomats said. Meeting in Brussels, the ministers backed a multipronged initiative — to be endorsed by EU leaders at a summit this week — that aims to provide Ukraine with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-320689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n