"This is good for Europe and good for America, especially since much of this extra money is spent here in the United States," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 17.
The following is the June 12, 2024 edition of our Ukraine Business Roundup weekly newsletter. To get the biggest news in business and tech from Ukraine directly in your inbox, subscribe here. Ukraine’s annual recovery conference happened this week in Berlin, but instead of talks of grand plans to
Ireland is not a member of NATO, and has one of the lowest rates of defense spending across the EU, at around .2% of its GDP.
"(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is training his people for war and positioning them against the West. We must, therefore, become capable of defense as quickly as possible," Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a member of the co-ruling Free Democratic Party (FDP), said in a comment for the Funke media group published on June 1.
President Volodymyr Zelensky plans to address delegates at the event on June 1, according to the news agency's undisclosed sources.
The defense ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia met in the Lithuanian town of Palanga on May 22 and agreed on their key goals ahead of the upcoming NATO summit, including an allied commitment to invest at least 2.5% of GDP in defense.
It will take as long as two years for Sweden to reach the desired capacity to provide Ukraine with more ammunition and strengthen the Swedish Armed Forces, Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said in an interview with Bloomberg published on May 21.
The next Ramstein-format summit of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) will occur on May 20.
Drones operated by Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) hit production facilities of the state-owned Russian weapons manufacturing company "Basalt" in the city of Tula overnight on May 16, a military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent.
VOVCHANSK, KHARKIV OBLAST – The glide bombs arrive in groups of three. Their flight can be heard from far away, but only in the last second before impact is it clear where it will hit. The explosions, orders of magnitude more powerful than regular artillery shells, shake the ground where the
"By defending Israel, the free world demonstrated that unity (among allies) is not only possible but 100% effective," Zelensky said after a meeting with top military and security officials . "The allies' decisive actions prevented the success of terrorism and loss of infrastructure and forced the aggressor to cool down."
While Spain has increased its military spending since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it stood at 1.26% of its GDP as of the end of 2023, far below the 2% benchmark for NATO members.
In early March, Zelensky announced that Ukraine was building 2,000 kilometers of fortifications. According to the governor, the construction in Kyiv Oblast includes an extensive system of trenches, dugouts, anti-tank ditches, and other non-explosive barriers.
The European Commission allocated 500 million euros (around $544 million) to increase the EU's ammunition production capacity to 2 million shells per year by the end of 2025, the commission's press service announced on March 15.
Ukraine has "almost certainly" accelerated the construction of defensive fortifications along several areas of the front line, the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote in its March 10 report.
Ukrainian troops are building fortifications in expectation of a Russian offensive in the spring, though some worry that the progress is not fast enough, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on March 7, citing Western officials and Ukrainian soldiers.
The European Commission presented the first-ever European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) at the EU level to support the competitiveness and readiness of the bloc’s defense industry, the commission’s press service announced on March 5.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton will present specific proposals to the bloc's members to jointly buy from European arms companies and increase the production capacities of these firms, according to the officials.
Ukraine's capabilities for 2024 are six times higher than they were in 2023, Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024." forum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25.
Supplies of weapons and equipment to Ukraine will take time, even as production capacity increases, BAE Systems Chief Executive Officer Charles Woodburn told Bloomberg on Feb. 21.
The Appeals Chamber of Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court ordered the arrest of Oleksandr Liyev, former head of the Defense Ministry's department in charge of weapons procurement, the Anti-Corruption Action Center reported on Feb. 12.
"The success of Ukraine's efforts to build its (defense industrial base) depends on Ukraine's ability to liberate strategically vital areas occupied by Russian forces," according to the ISW.
Kyiv authorities are establishing a territorial defense headquarters to ensure the capital city's security in the event of an all-out military invasion by Russia. The city's territorial defense grid is going to be unfolded soon, according to a statement published on Dec. 27. "Russia's allegations and threats, the concentration of
