10:34 20.02.2023

Borrell: first and most urgent task for Europe is to arm Ukraine, issue of ammunition must be resolved quickly

2 min read
Borrell: first and most urgent task for Europe is to arm Ukraine, issue of ammunition must be resolved quickly

The first and most urgent task for Europe is to arm Ukraine, military support must be strengthened, especially with regard to ammunition, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell has said.

"Much more has to be done and much quicker. There is still a lot to be done. We have to increase and accelerate our military support to Ukraine," he said at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday morning.

The first and most urgent thing that a geopolitical Europe has to do, is to arm Ukraine, as Borrell said.

The diplomat urged to go "from words to facts," because Ukraine should win, but now it is in dire need of ammunition.

"As all European leaders said here, yesterday, that Russia cannot win this war, that Ukraine has to prevail. Then let's go from words to facts and accelerate our military support to Ukraine, because Ukraine is in a critical situation from the point of view from available ammunition," Borrell said.

He also added that the EU had taken too much time to take critical decisions for providing battle tanks, "when everybody knows that to win a war, a classical war… you need battle tanks."

"And now, this shortage of ammunition needs to be solved quickly. It’s a matter of weeks," Borrell said.

As the high representative of the EU explained, the countries have to provide quickly apart from the ammunition waiting to replenish their stocks with the orders already done.

He added that decisions on the supply of ammunition should be made by defense ministers, and in particular, the issue of accelerating the transfer will be discussed at a meeting on March 7-8.

"And in the medium term, we have to increase the capacity of our defence industry much more. But this will not happen overnight," Borrell said.

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