European leaders reaffirm military and financial support for Ukraine

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €3.5 billion short-term aid package during her address to a special summit in Kyiv on Monday.

More than a dozen European leaders and partners including Canada gathered in Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion and reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €3.5 billion EU financial aid package to inject additional liquidity into Ukraine’s limited budget and facilitate the purchase of military equipment for its domestic industry.

The €3.5 billion is an advance on a larger €50 billion aid fund set up by the European Union in early 2024, called the Ukraine Facility. While Brussels has been able to cover Ukraine’s financial needs for the entire year, arms supplies after the summer remain uncertain. Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his country would provide a €1bn package of military systems to Ukraine this year. The summit was marred by US President Donald Trump’s attempts to start a peace process by engaging with Russia bilaterally and undoing three years of transatlantic politics.

The EU insists that both Ukraine and the bloc itself must participate in the negotiations. Von der Leyen and Trudeau argue that global security is at stake in Ukraine Global security is at stake in the negotiations to end the war, EU chief executive Ursula von der Leyen warned. “Autocrats around the world are watching closely to see whether there is any impunity if international borders are violated or a neighbouring country is invaded, or whether there is real deterrence,” she said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed that sentiment. Canadians, he said, “believe deeply that this is not just about Ukraine. This is about the rules, the values ​​and the principles of sovereignty, of independence, of territorial integrity that protect every country in the world. We all depend on those rules to be able to build peace and security.”

In a series of setbacks to Kiev’s aspirations, Trump has in recent days called President Zelensky a “dictator,” suggested Ukraine was to blame for the war and ended the three-year diplomatic isolation of Putin by the United States. Senior U.S. officials have also signaled to Ukraine that its hopes of joining NATO are unlikely to materialize and that the country is unlikely to regain the territory controlled by the Russian military, which amounts to nearly 20 percent of the country.