The European Union will reimburse Poland for a large part of the costs of arms it has donated to Ukraine to help Kyiv defend itself from Russia’s invasion, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has revealed. Poland has been the second largest donor of military equipment to Ukraine in the world this year.
“Yesterday, I discussed this with the European Commission,” said Morawiecki on Saturday, following a visit to Brussels the previous day for a European Council summit.
“The European Commission will to a large extent, or at least in a large part, to speak safely, reimburse our expenses and these weapons of ours that we have given to Ukraine,” containued the prime minister, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Earlier this month, President Andrzej Duda said that Poland has provided Ukraine with arms and other military equipment worth at least $1.7 billion. That has included over 200 T-72 tanks, 18 Krab self-propelled tracked gun-howitzers, and a large number of Piorun portable surface-to-air missiles.
According to the “Ukraine Support Tracker” compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Poland has committed to providing more weapons and equipment to Ukraine since January than any country other than the United States.
In terms of all forms of aid (military, humanitarian and financial) in relation to population, Poland had given more than any country other than Estonia and Latvia.
Speaking on Saturday, Morawiecki said that Poland had “done the right thing” by providing so much support. But he also reassured that “we did not weaken our capacity in such a way that we could fear that we were vulnerable here, absolutely not”.
“If today Poland is on the lips of practically all the leaders of the whole world and Poland is spoken of so well in every language of the world, except maybe Russian, this is your doing, this is the doing of the Poles,” said Morawiecki.
The prime minister also noted that giving equipment to Ukraine was vital for the defence of Poland too: “Today the fight for a free Poland is taking place on the Donetsk-Lugansk front line.”
During his remarks earlier this month, however, Duda reiterated that Poland expects its allies to help make up the shortfall of the equipment it has given to Ukraine. He had previously accused Germany of reneging on a promise to provide Poland with tanks, something Berlin denies.
Main photo credit: Leszek Chemperek/MON (under CC BY 3.0 PL)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
