Germany will initiate a $351 million program to supply Ukraine with several thousand long-range drones for deep strikes against Russian military targets, Berlin’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Tuesday.
Pistorius said that the “new deep-strike initiative” will boost “support for the procurement of long-range drones with Ukraine’s defense industry” at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), otherwise known as the Ramstein summit, in London.
Pistorius claimed that Germany was “expanding Ukraine’s capabilities to weaken Russia’s war machinery in the hinterland, providing an effective defense” through the initiative, according to AFP.
The gathering is the 30th meeting of the group, an alliance of 56 countries and the European Union coordinating the provision of military aid to Ukraine.
The UK also used the summit as an opportunity to double down on military support for Ukraine after Russian attacks on major cities over the weekend.
UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said that the UK will finance the production of thousands of long-range drones on its territory which will then be transferred to Ukraine.
Healey also said on Tuesday that a UK-led international fund to provide Ukraine with military support has topped £2 billion ($2.7 billion), adding that since the last UDCG meeting in July the UK has delivered nearly five million rounds of ammunition, 60,000 artillery shells, rockets and missiles and 200 electronic warfare and defense systems.
“Putin is escalating his attacks on Ukraine, so we must go further and go faster to surge vital military kit into the hands of Ukraine’s war fighters,” Healey said in a press release.
“We see Putin’s aggression increasing, but this only strengthens our unity and our determination to step up military support for Ukraine,” he continued, describing the £2 billion funding milestone as “symbolic of unity, with 11 countries working together with the UK to ensure Ukraine receives the urgent support it needs to fight today.”
In June, Kyiv’s former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said the UK would fund a three-year drone production initiative in cooperation with Ukrainian defense firms.
It came as France’s Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad reaffirmed that French military support for Ukraine will continue despite political upheaval in Paris as France anticipates the nomination of its fifth prime minister in under two years.
Speaking to Reuters, Haddad said: “Support for Ukraine is really a transpartisan issue, from the Socialists to the Republicans and the centre.”
“It’s absolutely fundamental for our country’s interest,” Haddad said in advance of his trip to Ukraine on Thursday.
“Our defense budget has been preserved, its increase has been protected over the past few years, and it will continue.”