Who in EU to Send to Ukraine One Million Shells for Heavy Artillery and Missiles

On Monday, March 20, in Brussels, EU foreign and defence ministers agreed on an unprecedented plan for the European Union - to provide Ukraine with one million artillery shells within 12 months, primarily 155 mm shells.

Read about the historic deal in the article by the Brussels partner of "European Pravda" EURACTIV Shells bypassing Hungary: how and under what conditions EU to jointly send ammunition to Ukraine.

On Monday evening, The Council of the European Union published its decision on military procurement for Ukraine, following the ongoing debates for the past several weeks.

The first part of the three-track EU-proposed plan involves committing a further €1 billion of shared funding to get EU states to tap their already stretched stocks for ammunition that can be sent quickly.

To realise the true scale of this deal, it is enough to say that, according to the EU Council, officials say that since the invasion last February, 450 million euros has been spent on supplying 350,000 shells.

What exactly will Ukraine get?

The EU-approved document refers to the urgent provision of surface-to-surface munitions, artillery ammunition, and, if requested, missiles to Ukraine. Details on the latter element have not been disclosed in public documents. It is possible that we are talking about air defence systems. However, the document does not contain a target restriction.

As for artillery, the priority is large-caliber rounds.

In particular, it is about the purchase of 155-millimeter ammunition "and, upon a corresponding request from Ukraine, missiles until September 30, 2023 through the defense industry of the European Union and Norway."

A group of 18 European countries signed joint procurement plans at a ministerial meeting on Monday. This document, known as a project agreement, sets out the terms for the joint procurement of 155 mm ammunition under the European Defence Agency, an EU institution.

At Monday's ministerial meeting, a group of 17 EU member states – Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden – plus Norway signed a document known as a project arrangement, setting out the terms of reference for a joint endeavour to buy 155 mm ammunition, led by the EU’s European Defence Agency (EDA).

More member states are likely to join.

An obvious example: no doubt Ukraine's friends from Lithuania and Latvia will join the deal. Especially since the Latvian Prime Minister spoke passionately in support of this agreement in an interview with EuroPravda just a few days ago.

But Hungary has already announced that it does not support (Ukr) the assistance of the Armed Forces with shells and will not participate in the project.

Monday's agreement was adopted precisely as an agreement of specific states. Therefore it was signed by ministers. Probably, this made it possible to bypass a veto from official Budapest.

Hungary indeed blocked another EU decision on Monday - the reaction to the ICC arrest warrant for Putin, suspected of committing a war crime.

In contrast to Hungary, it is very telling that the neutral state of Austria, which refused to supply weapons to Ukraine in early 2023, finally gave up the principles of neutrality and joined the agreement.

Ukraine will receive defence supplies for free. The costs will be divided between the budget of the European Union and the states that will make the purchase.

The deal is based on an EU-proposed three-track plan to spend €1 billion on shells from stockpiles and €1 billion more on joint procurement. The document specifies a set reimbursement rate for the member states delivering ammunition to Kyiv at 50-60%.

It is no less important that this agreement was a step towards EU integration in a new area.

The agreement on purchase much-needed artillery shells for Ukraine became historic not only for Ukraine, but also for the EU.

According to the document, the initiative is aimed at procurement only in EU countries and Norway.

"We have to admit that a million shells are a minimum of what Ukraine needs – but this is still far from what Ukraine needs to make a difference on the ground and support their offensive," Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told EURACTIV.

And so, although the EU is significantly increasing supplies to back the Ukrainian victory, the help of other players, primarily the United States, remains extremely important.