With Zelenskiy at NATO HQ, U.S. Announces Fresh $200 Million Military Aid Package For Ukraine
According to RFE/RL, The United States said it would give Ukraine a new military aid package worth $200 million as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy traveled to NATO's headquarters in Belgium to press for more support for his war-ravaged country ahead of the onset of the cold season.
"I'm proud that the United States will announce its latest security assistance package for Ukraine, valued at $200 million," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said alongside Zelenskiy at the opening of a meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein format, which consists of some 50 countries that back Kyiv in its war against Russia.
Austin said the new package will consist of air-defense, rocket, and artillery ammunition as well as anti-tank systems, among other things, adding that Washington "will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes."
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told the Defense Contact Group that his country will deliver the first U.S.-made F-16 warplanes to Ukraine in the spring of next year. In August, Zelenskiy said Denmark had approved sending 19 of the advanced warplanes to Ukraine.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said after meeting with Zelenskiy that Belgium will send F-16s to Ukraine from 2025 and provide their maintenance.
"Belgium from 2025 on will be in a position to supply F-16s to Ukraine," De Croo told a news conference without elaborating on the number of planes Belgium intends to send.
Zelenskiy earlier on October 11 held talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during his first visit at the alliance's headquarters in Belgium since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy, whose visit also came ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers and a gathering of the NATO-Ukraine Council, said Ukraine needs more weapons to protect civilians, its energy infrastructure, and its food exports.
"What we are seeing now is that [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin is preparing once again to use winter as a weapon of war, meaning attacking the energy system, the gas infrastructure. We need to prevent that," Stoltenberg said after the meeting.
The NATO-Ukraine Council was established at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July and serves as a platform for exchanges during crisis situations and aims to promote deeper cooperation until Ukraine can fulfil conditions for NATO membership.
