EU Ambassador hopes practice of buying ammo from Ukrainian defense industry for AFU to proceed

The Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, praised the practice of using frozen Russian assets to buy ammunition for Ukraine’s Armed Forces from the nation’s defense producers.

In a comment to Ukrinform, the ambassador touched upon the recent EU move to allocate, via Denmark, the EUR 400 million of the EUR 1.4 billion taken from the proceeds from frozen Russian assets for procuring ammunition from the Ukrainian defense companies to be used by Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

“We have already used the proceeds from Russia’s frozen assets well before the big EUR 50 billion we legislated half a year ago, and now we put it in practice. The first batch of the 2024 money, the EUR 1.4 billion, was already dispersed to buy weapons for Ukraine through the European Peace Facility, and out of this sum, we asked Denmark to pass EUR 400 million on, alongside their own investment, to the Ukrainian defense industry to procure ammunition in Ukraine, for Ukraine,” the ambassador said.

“I very much hope that the practice will proceed. We have the second batch coming in March,” she added.

She noted that Denmark was the first member state to go along this track of passing money to the Ukrainian defense industry.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, speaking at the Ukraine 2024. Independence forum on August 27, announced that the country expects to receive $300 billion derived from frozen Russian assets, with the first $50 billion to be allocated before year-end.