US pledges further €392mln in military aid for Ukraine

The Pentagon has said it will send an additional $425 million (€392 million) in military assistance to Ukraine as Kyiv prepares to face Russian forces augmented by more than 10,000 North Korean troops.

The new aid package, announced by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, includes weapons that will be pulled from existing US stockpiles, including air defence interceptors for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and 155 mm artillery and armoured vehicles and anti-tank weapons.

The aid package announced by the Pentagon brings the total amount of military assistance the US has provided Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022 to $60.4 billion (€55 billion).

Ukraine’s eastern cities continue to face an onslaught of Russian missile strikes, including one on Kharkiv by a 500-kilogram glide bomb.

That attack on Thursday hit an apartment complex, killing three and injuring several others.

Russia has increasingly used powerful glide bombs to pummel Ukrainian positions along the 1,000-kilometre line of contact and strike cities dozens of kilometres from the front line.

Ukraine is also facing fresh uncertainty as waves of North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia have arrived near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to join the fight against Ukrainian troops in the coming days.

Fico pushes back

Meanwhile, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has pushed back against Western military support for Ukraine, accusing European countries of not being interested in a peaceful resolution to the war and saying providing Kyiv with weapons only prolongs the fighting.

“It was Western politicians who, on the contrary, did everything possible to ensure that no realistic peace agreements were signed in April 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, and Zelensky’s peace plan fell into the dust as unrealistic,” Fico said in a video message recorded in Beijing.

“And instead of the emergence of a new version, the Ukrainian president presents a victory plan in which he calls for medium- and long-range missiles to be able to hit targets on the territory of the Russian Federation. This plan does not lead to peace.”

Just a day after taking office in October last year, Fico suspended all military aid deliveries to Ukraine, saying “The EU should change from an arms supplier to a peacemaker.”

He did however say deliveries of humanitarian aid to Kyiv would continue.

The government’s decision prompted regular Slovakians to dig deep and provide much-needed cash for the Ukrainian military operation. In April, a crowdfunding campaign to buy artillery shells raised €1 million less than 48 hours after it was launched.

The ‘Baltic example’

But in the Latvian capital Riga, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal said the war in Ukraine was “about our freedom” and urged other European countries to follow the “Baltic example” by providing Kyiv with the means to win the war.

“If you allow somebody to change borders by force and after that, negotiate about it and come on, I don’t know what kind of example would you set?” he said, adding that supporting Ukraine militarily was “the only way”.

In 2024, Estonia pledged more than €100 million in military aid for Ukraine, with Latvia promising €112 million.