(MENAFN- UkrinForm) More than half of the GBP 900 million military aid fund for Ukraine administered by the British Ministry of Defense has not been used due to bureaucratic delays in contracting.
That's according to The Guardian , Ukrinform reports.
The International Fund for Ukraine, headed by Britain and including nine nations, appears to be too slow on arms deliveries, critics say.
Of the GBP 900 million ($1.113 billion) allocated by governments over the past two years, of which GBP 500 million came from the UK, only GBP 404 million“has been committed or spent”, the report reads.
Defense ministers from the donor countries have admitted that some of the weapons laid down in the contracts already signed will not arrive in Ukraine until the spring of 2025.
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aid to Ukraine as moment seen as“critical”
According to defense chiefs, the delays are caused by the need to evaluate each of the huge number of defense companies that took part in tenders.
The International Fund for Ukraine was established in August 2022 to finance military training and armaments for Ukraine following a full-scale Russian invasion.
It was conceived as a flexible, low-bureaucracy facility administered by the Ministry of Defense on behalf of an executive team including the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Lithuania.
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Funds were allocated by Denmark (GBP 133 million), Iceland (GBP 3 million), Lithuania (GBP 5 million), the Netherlands (GBP 110 million), Norway (GBP 119 million), Sweden (GBP 26 million), Australia GBP (26 million) and New Zealand (GBP 4 million).
More than 100 unmanned aerial systems, 80 engineering vehicles, and air defense radars were financed from the fund.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, the UK is looking into giving Ukraine a prototype of the DragonFire laser weapon capable of shooting down drones and missiles.
Photo: Bloomberg
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