Ukraine announced on Tuesday the signing of cooperation agreements on military drones with several European countries, after the launch of a mechanism allowing its partners to purchase Ukrainian weapons and technologies.
• Also read: At NATO summit, Trump boasts of his “alchemy” with the Turkish president
• Also read: IOC allows Russian athletes to participate in qualifications for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics
• Also read: Putin and Zelensky ‘both want a deal,’ says Trump
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had reached agreements with Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia and was preparing to do so with Germany, Finland, Norway and Canada.
According to the mechanism announced by Kyiv, countries with which Ukraine has concluded agreements will have “the opportunity to purchase Ukrainian weapons and technologies and work directly with Ukrainian manufacturers.”
To fight against the Russian invasion, Ukraine is dependent on its Western allies to provide it with numerous categories of weapons, but it has also developed its own technologies in certain areas, notably in terms of drones and anti-drone warfare.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov warned that arms exports would only be possible if “the supply of the Ukrainian army” was “guaranteed”.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was investigating embezzlement amounting to 7 billion hryvnias (approximately $222 million CAD) in connection with the supply of drones to the Ukrainian armed forces.
“The investigation examines a hypothesis according to which the cost of drones would have been artificially inflated” by the companies which won the contract with the Ministry of Defense, explained this structure.
The police searched the premises of several companies and discovered “large sums of cash” but no person has yet been arrested, according to the same source.
According to figures from the German Kiel Institute, Ukraine has received more than 214 billion euros in aid from European countries and more than 115 billion euros from the United States since 2022.
