On Thursday, November 23, the Finnish government submitted a proposal to the parliament to amend the draft budget for 2024, among other things, the proposal contains amendments to support Ukraine, the government’s website reports.
In particular, it is proposed to increase by €95.7 million the maximum amount of authorization for the purchase of military equipment for the UKR 2023 Defense Forces for 2024-2028. The proposal will cover the cost of replacing equipment as a result of the 19th package of material assistance provided to Ukraine. The increase in allocations in 2024 will amount to EUR 20.7 million. As a result of the increase, the maximum amount of procurement authorization will be EUR 1 billion 451 million.
In addition, the government proposes to increase the capital of the Finnfund by EUR 25 million, which will be used for investments and loans focused on Ukraine.
On Friday, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö decided to send another military equipment to help Ukraine on the proposal of the government.
According to the Finnish government’s website, this will be the 20th delivery of military equipment to Ukraine. The replacement of the defense equipment contained in this package will cost Finland approximately EUR100 million.
“The total compensation value of the 20 packages of Finnish defense equipment now amounts to EUR 1.5 billion,” said Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen.
For operational reasons, and to ensure that the aid reaches its destination safely, no further information will be disclosed about the contents of the package, the method of delivery or the schedule.
The government noted that the decision to provide additional assistance took into account both the needs of Ukraine and the resources of the Finnish Defense Forces.
“The prospects for security in Europe and Finland in the current decade are at stake in Ukraine’s defense struggle. Together with our allies, we remain unwavering in our commitment to support Ukrainians,” Mr. Kaikkonen emphasized.
Finland will send the 18th military aid package to Ukraine.
“The cost of the military equipment to be supplied will be about 94 million euros,” the government of the republic said on Friday.
The total cost of all the aid provided by Finland will be about 1.3 billion euros.
The exact content of the aid and the delivery schedule are not disclosed for reasons of ensuring safe delivery.
On Wednesday, during a visit to Ukraine, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Finland would soon decide on a new military aid package.
“Artillery, ammunition, and air defense equipment, in particular, are now of central importance in Ukraine. Ukraine needs air defense to protect not only its cities and citizens, but also commercial routes, such as grain shipments in the Black Sea,” he told a meeting of his National Conservative Party’s parliamentary faction on Friday.
He noted that Ukraine will host an exhibition for defense equipment manufacturers in the fall.
“I call on all Finnish defense industry operators to take advantage of this opportunity and participate in export work,” Orpo urged.
Finland will provide Ukraine with the next 18th defense aid package by the end of the week, it will include heavy weapons and ammunition, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has said.
“Finland has already provided Ukraine with 1.7 billion euros in aid… We are now preparing the next 18th aid package. It will include heavy weapons, ammunition… We should deliver finally at the end of this week. This is a very good package. It contains very necessary materials,” Orpo said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev.
Answering journalists’ questions whether Finnish high technologies would be available to Ukraine and whether there was anything concrete that Finland could offer, the prime minister said he had discussed the issue with Zelensky and called it “a good idea.”
“We discussed this issue with the president. Last week we saw that a Swedish company signed a cooperation agreement with Ukraine. We discussed that there are high-tech companies in Finland, that they could engage in cooperation to manufacture something together. I think we have something to do. We have experience. So it’s a good idea,” he said.
In turn, Zelensky said that Ukraine is extremely interested in Finnish armored personnel carriers.
“We would like to manufacture them together – in Ukraine. We discussed this with the Prime Minister. He very rightly said that we concluded a memorandum on the production of CV-90. But we need more. And during the war and after the war Ukraine will need to remain strong in order not to give Russia any opportunity to think about the second wave of aggression against us. That’s why we need to produce more. That is why we wanted and want to organize this Defense Industries Forum,” the Ukrainian president said.
Finland will provide Ukraine with the 17th package of military assistance, including air defense equipment and ammunition, the Finnish government said in a press release on Thursday.
According to the statement, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto made the decision based on the government’s proposal.
The aid package will cost Finland 105 million euros.
In order to ensure the safe delivery of military cargoes to their destination, more precise details about the content of the aid package, the timing and ways of its transportation are not reported.
In total, Finland has provided Ukraine with military assistance worth about 1.2 billion euros.
Ukraine’s state budget on Thursday received $1.215 billion in grant funds through the World Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund: $1.2 billion from the U.S. and ;15 million from Finland.
“The grant funds are provided as part of the fifth additional funding under the project Supporting Public Expenditures for Sustainable Public Administration in Ukraine (PEACE in Ukraine). The purpose of the project is to partially compensate state budget expenditures, including social and humanitarian, not related to the sphere of security and defense,” the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.
It specified that the attracted grant financing will be used for remuneration of state bodies’ employees and teaching staff, pension payments, as well as payments under certain programs of state social assistance (IDPs, people with disabilities, low-income families and payments of housing and communal subsidies).
The Finance Ministry added that in cooperation with Deloitte Consulting, which implements the USAID SOERA project, it is monitoring the use of direct budget support from the US government, and with PriceWaterhouseCoopers Ukraine, an auditing company, is reviewing the agreed procedures in order to determine the eligible state expenditures made by Ukraine in 2022.
It is indicated that the size of the PEACE in Ukraine program reached $16.5 billion and EUR1.4 billion (IBRD loans, MIGA loans, grants of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund).
