By Lili Bayer and Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Several European countries said on Tuesday they were willing to buy U.S. arms for Ukraine under a scheme announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, although arrangements still needed to be worked out.
Trump said on Monday that Washington will supply Patriot air defence systems, missiles and other weaponry to Ukraine for its war against Russia’s invasion and that the arms would be paid for by other NATO countries.
But much remains undisclosed, including the amounts and precise types of weapons to be provided, how quickly they would be supplied and how they would be paid for.
U.S. officials have suggested that European countries will be willing to give up some of their own stocks of weapons for Ukraine and then buy replacements from the United States. But some of the countries involved say they still don’t even know what is being asked of them.
Such a move would get weapons to Ukraine more quickly but would leave donor countries’ defences more exposed until new systems are ready.
“We are ready to participate. Of course we can’t do it on our own, we need others to partner up – but we have a readiness,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of European Union ministers.
Speaking alongside Trump at the White House on Monday, NATO chief Mark Rutte said that Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada want to be part of the new initiative.
Many of those countries have been among the biggest military aid donors to Ukraine, either overall or per capita.
Asked whether Denmark could give U.S. arms from its own stocks as part of the scheme, Rasmussen said: “We don’t have these kind of systems – the Patriot systems – so if we should lean in, and we are absolutely ready to do so, it will be (with) money and we have to work out the details.”
European ministers said they would now need to examine how new purchases of U.S. weapons could be paid for. In many cases, that seems likely to involve countries teaming up to buy U.S. weapons systems.
“Now we need to see how together we can go in and finance, among other things, Patriots, which they plan to send to Ukraine,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told Swedish radio.
In Brussels, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said his country is looking into the plan “with a positive inclination”.
Asked about the scheme, Norwegian Defence Minister Tore Sandvik told Reuters that Oslo was “in close dialogue with Ukraine” on military aid and “air defence remains a high priority for Ukraine and for the Norwegian military support”.
“Norway has contributed to significant amounts of air defence for Ukraine, including co-financing the donation of a Patriot system and missiles,” he said.
The Finnish Defence Ministry said Helsinki “will continue to provide material support to Ukraine”.
“The details of the U.S. initiative … are not yet known and we are interested to hear more about them before we can take more concrete lines on this issue,” it said.
(Additional reporting by Milan Strahm, Simon Johnson, Essi Lehto, Stine Jacobsen, Madeline Chambers, Bart Meijer and Charlotte Van CampenhoutEditing by Peter Graff)
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