During ceasefire agreement, NATO countries to supply Kiev with modern weaponry

RIA Novosti
Thu, 11 Sep 2014 17:00 UTC

© RIA Novosti/Nikolay Lazarenko

Poroshenko has agreed direct deliveries of modern weaponry from several NATO countries.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has agreed on direct deliveries of modern weaponry from several NATO countries, a statement on his website said Monday.

"Agreements with a number of NATO countries have been reached ensuring direct supplies of modern weaponry, which will help us to defend ourselves and achieve a victory," the statement said.

Comment: To "defend ourselves" as used here means exactly the same as when the Israeli IDF uses the phrase after having initiated a war against unarmed defenseless civilians.

"We are counting on ourselves, but we desperately need financial and technical-military aid. And we will get it," the document said.

On September 7, Yuri Lutsenko, senior aide to the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, claimed that the United States, France, Italy, Poland and Norway had agreed to supply modern armaments to Ukraine at the September 4-5 NATO summit in Wales. Reuters disproved the information by citing an anonymous high-profile US official. Italy, Norway and Poland have also denied the existence of any arrangements to supply weapons to Ukraine. France declined to comment on the issue, Reuters reported.

Ukraine has been embroiled in violent internal conflict since mid-April, when Kiev began a military operation against independence supporters in the southeastern regions of the country.

The statement comes amid a ceasefire agreement reached on September 5 at a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk.

Comment: From Interfax Ukraine posted also today, we get a bit more details on what exactly Kiev is going to receive in weaponry and by when:

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry expects to be supplied with 145 items of military hardware, including planes, helicopters, and armored vehicles, by the end of 2014, Ihor Odnoralov, a deputy director of the Defense Ministry department for development and procurement of weapons and military hardware, said at a news conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"We expect to receive 145 items of military hardware by the end of the year. These are planes, helicopters, and armored vehicles. We also expect over 500 domestically-manufactured firearms, about 2,000 thermal imagers, and about 200 special communications devices," Odnoralov said.

The Defense Ministry has received UAH 6.9 billion out of the UAH 11.7 billion allocated for its needs in the 2014 national budget and has spent UAH 3.2 billion, he said.