KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine’s foreign partners pledged over 1.5 billion euros ($1.68 billion) in military aid for Kyiv while attending a NATO summit this week, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Thursday.
“Meetings in Vilnius were very productive,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter following the summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Lithuanian capital.
“Ukraine will receive over €1.5 billion in military aid from its international partners,” he said. “Stay tuned.”
Reznikov’s tweet mentioned seven countries that had offered military aid packages in Vilnius, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had a series of meetings with foreign leaders.
Among them was a 700-million-euro aid package from Germany which he said included 25 Leopard 1A5 tanks. He also hailed aid packages from France, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway and from non-NATO member Australia, whose prime minister met Zelenskiy in Vilnius.
NATO leaders said at the summit that Ukraine, which has been invaded by Russia, should be able to join the military alliance at some point in the future.
They did not issue an immediate invitation but assured Ukraine of unwavering support, as well as making the new pledges of military aid.
Zelenskiy hailed the results of the summit, saying Ukraine had “a foundation of security for Ukraine on its path to NATO” for the first time since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
($1 = 0.8944 euros)
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka and Kyiv newsroom, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
