European Peace Facility - The European fund being used to buy lethal artilery
The fund is two years old and is intended, at least, to prevent conflict and strengthen international security. It has a financial ceiling of 5.7 billion euros — about $6.4 billion — for the seven-year budget of 2021 to 2027. If Ukraine needs more money, the E.U. official said, it can be provided. According to NATO, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Britain and the United States have already sent or are approving significant deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine, as well as millions of dollars, while other member states are providing humanitarian aid and welcoming refugees. A city is captured. Russian troops gained control of Kherson, the first Ukrainian city to be overcome during the war. The overtaking of Kherson is significant as it allows the Russians to control more of Ukraine’s southern coastline and to push west toward the city of Odessa. Military aid. Several countries are funneling arms into Ukraine, while NATO is moving military equipment and troops into member states bordering Russia and Belarus, amid rising fears that Russia might try to reclaim its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. American airspace ban. President Biden announced that the U.S. will ban Russian aircraft from flying through American airspace. The ban follows similar moves by the E.U. and Canada to shut airspace to passenger flights from Russia and to planes used by Russian oligarchs. Russian convoy. Satellite images show a Russian military convoy stretching 40 miles long on a roadway north of Kyiv, with a number of homes and buildings seen burning nearby. Experts fear the convoy could be used to encircle and cut off the capital or to launch a full-on assault. On Feb. 25, the day after Russia attacked Ukraine, the White House approved a $350 million package of weapons and equipment, including Javelins and Stingers. Pentagon officials said shipments began flowing within days from military stockpiles in Germany to Poland and Romania, from where the matériel has been shipped overland through western Ukraine. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, promised Ukraine to provide tens of thousands of shells and artillery ammunition, antiaircraft missiles, light mortars, reconnaissance drones and other reconnaissance weapons. Poland, Hungary and Moldova are also welcoming thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war.
Refugees from Ukraine arriving at the Polish village of Medyka last week. Sweden, not a member of NATO, announced that it would send Ukraine 5,000 antitank weapons, 5,000 helmets, 5,000 items of body armor and 135,000 field rations, plus about $52 million for the Ukrainian military. Finland, similarly, has said it will deliver 2,500 assault rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition for them, 1,500 antitank weapons and 70,000 combat rations. But NATO has also moved to sharply reinforce its deterrence in member states on its eastern flank, to ensure that Russia does not test NATO’s commitment to collective defense. The United States alone has deployed 15,000 extra troops to Europe — 5,000 to Poland, 1,000 to Romania and 1,000 to the Baltic States — while committing another 12,000 troops, if necessary, to NATO’s Response Force, being used in collective defense for the first time. Washington has also deployed more fighter jets and attack helicopters to Romania, Poland and the Baltic States. In other examples of the rapid NATO effort to beef up its eastern borders, France sent its first tranche of troops to Romania on Monday, to lead a new NATO battalion there, and provided Rafale fighter jets to Poland. Germany, which already is lead nation of a NATO battalion in Lithuania, has sent another 350 troops and howitzers there, six fighter jets to Romania, some troops to Slovakia and two more ships to NATO’s maritime patrols. Berlin also said it would send a Patriot missile battery and 300 troops to operate it to NATO’s eastern flank, but did not specify where. Britain, the lead nation of the NATO battalion in Estonia, has sent another 850 soldiers and more Challenger tanks there, plus 350 more troops to Poland. It has also put another 1,000 on standby to help with refugees, and sent another four fighter jets to Cyprus, while sending two ships to the eastern Mediterranean.
