Finland is preparing a new defense assistance package for Ukraine.
President Sauli Niinistö announced this, Yle reports.
He stressed that the support for the Ukrainian forces should continue until the peace that Ukraine deserves is achieved.
“Today [Dec. 19], with the leaders of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), we discussed our unwavering support for Ukraine, as well as ways to improve security in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea region,” Niinistö tweeted.
The President of Finland also rejected the idea of the President of France to provide Russia with security guarantees.
“Russia’s neighbors are the ones who need security guarantees. If the Russian Federation provides its neighbors with security guarantees, then it would be possible to consider guarantees of a similar scale,” Sauli Niinistö shared in response to journalists` questions.
The JEF unites the following countries: Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Estonia.
Last month, the Finnish Ministry of Defense announced that it would be transferring the 10th batch of defense assistance worth 55.6 million euros to Ukraine.
The defense ministry emphasized that by that point, the total cost of aid transferred to Ukraine reached 160.4 million euros.
For safety reasons, the contents and terms of assistance provision are not reported. It is only noted that the transferred aid meets the requests of Ukraine.
It was revealed through open sources that the Ukrainian military was using Finnish-made m/50 fragmentation grenades. The 23 ItK 61 anti-aircraft autocannons were spotted in service of the territorial defense forces.
The Defense Forces also operate Finnish Sisu XA-180/185 armored personnel carriers and 120 KRH 92 120mm mortars.