The unspecified loan amount comes on top of $3.27 billion in military aid
Vladimir Zelensky (R) shakes hands with Donald Tusk during a press conference in Kiev, Ukraine, January 22, 2024 © AFP / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service
Poland will give Ukraine a loan to make “larger-scale arms purchases,” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said after meeting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Kiev on Monday. “There is nothing more important” than giving Kiev more weapons, Tusk said.
“We appreciate Poland’s unwavering support and the new military aid package for Ukraine, as well as a new form of cooperation aimed at larger-scale arms purchases for Ukrainian needs: a Polish loan for Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Speaking in Kiev, Tusk also said that Warsaw was ready to finalize talks on the joint Polish-Ukrainian production of weapons and ammunition on Ukrainian territory, and that he had signed Poland on to a G7 pledge to continue arming Ukraine until it retakes its lost territory.
Neither Tusk nor Zelensky revealed how much money Poland would lend Ukraine, or when this cash would be transferred.
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Warsaw has already given Kiev more than €3 billion ($3.27 billion) in military aid since the beginning of Russia’s military operation, according to figures from the Kiel Institute for World Economy.
However, the future of Polish military aid was thrown into jeopardy in September when Tusk’s predecessor, Mateusz Morawiecki, announced that his country was “no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine,” and would instead focus on building up its own forces. Morawiecki’s declaration came amid a trade dispute that saw Kiev file a now-suspended complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Poland and some other EU states banning Ukrainian grain deliveries, which they argued undercut their own producers.
With Morawiecki’s nationalist government replaced by Tusk’s pro-EU cabinet, the new PM has promised that disagreements between Warsaw and Kiev will not stop the flow of arms.
“There is nothing more important than supporting Ukraine in its war effort against the Russian attack. This is absolutely number one,” he said, the Polsat news agency reported.
