The meeting comes after EU ministers on Monday approved the creation of a new €5 billion Ukraine Assistance Fund to partially refund weapons shipments to Kyiv under the European Peace Facility.
The U.S. also announced last week $300 million in military aid — including ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and 155mm and 105mm artillery shells — but President Joe Biden’s $60 billion emergency aid request still sits in limbo in the U.S. Congress.
Helping Kyiv win the war is a matter of security for the West as “Putin will not stop at Ukraine,” Austin warned.
“We will all be less secure if Putin gets his way, we’ll all be less secure in a violent, lawless world where dictators can redraw borders by force, wipe countries off the map and rebuild their old empires,” the U.S. defense secretary added.
