THE HAGUE - Defense minister Kajsa Ollongren has said the government will not put a limit on how many weapons it supplies to Ukraine to end the Russian invasion.
Ollongren said the Netherlands had given everything it could from current stocks and was now ordering new weapons from manufacturers. ‘The arms industry will have to deliver, for us and Ukraine, and we will have to finance it.’
The Netherlands has so far supplied €210 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including armored howitzers, but new pieces are much more expensive, Ollongren said.
‘That’s the book value, but if you go back to the factory for replacements you won’t even get half of what you had before.’
The minister said the defense industry needed to work ‘smarter’ to identify the best ways to support Ukraine on the battlefield.
‘We can’t just look at what we’ve got in stock,’ she said. ‘The whole world is placing orders. That means the manufacturers’ production lines need to be started up and kept running.
‘There are all kinds of problems with suppliers, raw materials and shortages of personnel. We need to solve those problems.’