The article of a non-main stream media outlet reports: “The UK is looking to participate in European purchases of US military equipment for Ukraine, as allies seize on Donald Trump’s more hostile stance toward Russia even if it means financing the weapons themselves.
Defense Secretary John Healey and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, will discuss what role the UK will play in the purchase program during a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Monday.”
This means that on Monday, 21 July, both Defense Ministers will look into the UK’s role.
This reveals that since Donald Trump, almost a week ago, told the World that the US would sell arms to NATO countries which will then send these arms to Ukraine, there is nothing decided on the European side.
France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Greece, Czech Republic opted out of this plan, as well as the minority countries, like Slovakia, Hungary and the Baltics.
The UK until now did not comment Trump’s plan, but today said it will look into it.
Reading through the article of the FinancialPost, one would understand that Germany is going to shoulder the weapons purchase mainly itself, as those small nordic countries like Denmark, Netherlands, Scandinavians may not be able to provide huge financing. The FinancialPost concludes that besides that no agreements have been signed, no understanding of who pays what has been found.
“Trump this week agreed to supply more materiel to the government in Kyiv, including Patriots, other air-defense systems and munitions, provided they were funded by NATO allies.” There is no declaration of NATO allies of what they will fund, and how much, whereas most of the larger NATO countries already opted out, and the UK just will look into it.
One reason is that the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Greece etc simply have no money, no budget. As well, these countries would rather give production orders to their home industries, instead of to to the US.
Germany has the budget: just a few months ago, Germany changed its Constitution to increase dramatically the debt levels, and for military expenses without limits. Germany’s industry is ailing, the German welfare depends as well on debts, the economy is shrinking year by year, government indebtness on record highs – but the German Government wants money for Ukraine, replacing the previous big spender, Biden-America.
“Germany is planning to finance the purchase of two Patriot batteries for Ukraine from the US, with the details of the deal to be negotiated in the coming weeks, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. Other European allies are yet to make such commitments.
Depending on the configuration, each of the Patriot systems — which are manufactured by RTX Corp. — cost about $1 billion, and the system’s missiles about $4 million each.”
And the FinancialPost finishes, writing: “the UK and France agreed last week to establish a military command and control structure for a post-peace force in Ukraine, if a peace deal is eventually agreed.
The command headquarters will be based in Paris for 12 months, before rotating to London. If and when the force is deployed, it will be co-ordinated by another HQ in Kyiv, headed by a UK military officer.
The goal is to regenerate Ukraine’s land, air and naval forces by providing logistics, armament and training experts as well as aircraft and additional specialist teams in the Black Sea.”
Wonderful, but sending troops to Ukraine that would impress Russia and could defend themselves will cost a lot more than buying arms from the US. The UK and France may be reminded that the set-up costs of Germany’s tanks brigade in Lithuania 2025 were EUR 11 billion, the running costs seemingly still are secret. Note that the German brigade may not yet be able or in need to defend itself as it is stationed in another NATO country and under no threat.
It is expected that lawmakers and the public will raise many questions in view of the enormous costs of such troop deployments to Ukraine, in particular, as the stressed budgets have no money for this extra-adventure available, as there is also no money for US weapons to Ukraine.
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