West needs to find “streams that flow into a river” – Finland’s President on aid to Ukraine

Western democracies should find various streams to help Ukraine and they can be both bilateral and multilateral.

This was stated by the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, CNN reports, according to Ukrinform.

"We are a fairly small country, but we are actually (GDP per capita) the sixth biggest donor. We’ve given EUR 2 billion in military aid and EUR 700 million in humanitarian and development aid. I went to Kyiv with a package of EUR 188 million of military stuff, actually including air defense and heavy artillery," he said.

Stubb emphasized that these are practical things that Ukrainians need.

"So what we need to do is we need to find a lot of different streams that come into a river. And the streams can come either bilaterally, they can come from the European Union, as they are coming right now. They can even come from NATO, and they certainly need to come from the United States," he said.

The President of Finland called on the U.S. Congress to finally approve the aid package for Ukraine.

"I just call on the American Congress to release the $60 billion. It is urgently necessary. What we’re basically playing with here is Ukrainian lives, and I don’t think our domestic politics should be involved in Ukrainian lives. They need the help, and they need it now," he said.

As Ukrinform reported, on Wednesday, April 3, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and President of Finland Alexander Stubb signed a bilateral security agreement for a period of 10 years. The deal was approved to implement the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine of July 12, 2023, joined by 32 countries. As of today, Ukraine has already concluded eight bilateral security agreements: with the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Finland.