Weekly Update #155
February 17, 2025

Source: UNHCR collation of statistics made available by the authorities

At a tipping point: How financial strains are driving Ukrainians abroad back home

This IFRC report presents an analysis of pressing humanitarian needs and emerging risks. The initiative harnesses quantitative and qualitative data from across the IFRC Network, and triangulates it with secondary resources, to produce credible, evidence-based analysis.

New data shows financial strains are driving Ukrainians back home.

A new report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) highlights that financial hardship is pushing more displaced Ukrainians to return home even to front-line areas where devastation and the threat of violence remains high.

The report paints a stark picture of people pushed to their limits both inside and outside of Ukraine. For those abroad, support systems are weakened, and living costs continue to rise. For many, especially older individuals, debt is mounting, healthcare is inaccessible, and the daily struggles are becoming overwhelming.

Key Findings from the Report:

• Economic strains driving people to return: Over half of those returning to Ukraine are doing so due to economic pressures, with 23 per cent reducing their food intake due to lack of resources.

• Returning to high-risk areas: 27 per cent of returnees are settling in areas near the front lines, despite serious security risks. A shocking 79 per cent of returnees to frontline areas report urgent unmet humanitarian needs.

• Debt: One in three returning refugees are currently in debt, with 12 per cent facing crippling debt they are unable to pay back.

• Older populations at severe risk: 54 per cent of displaced elderly Ukrainians rely on government aid, which is often insufficient. 32 per cent are living alone, increasing their vulnerability.

• Declining support: A drop in projected international aid in 2025 is putting critical humanitarian programmes at risk. The IFRC currently faces a CHF 280 million funding gap to sustain essential services for those affected.

With millions of Ukrainians facing worsening conditions both at home and in host countries, the IFRC is urging governments, donors, and humanitarian partners to step up support for displaced populations.

Key Findings

Moscow currently controls around a fifth of Ukraine's territory, mainly in the south and east.

Following the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president in 2014, Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in bloody fighting in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The conflict then burst into all-out war nearly three years ago after Russia's full-scale invasion.

Moscow's attempts to seize the capital Kyiv were thwarted, but Russian forces have since slowly expanded their territorial control, mostly in the east.

Ukrainian forces, supported by arms and equipment from the US and European allies, have made those advances as difficult as possible and have at times been able to retake territory, as well as stage a counter-offensive into western Russia.

Ukraine has always insisted any peace deal must include the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine back to the pre-2014 borders, including Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russia, on the other hand, has formally annexed four regions of east and south Ukraine and wants them to be recognised as part of Russia - despite not being in control of all the territory in those regions.

In an interview with the Guardian, Zelensky suggested that Russian-held territory in Ukraine could be swapped for territory seized by Ukraine in Russia's western Kursk region as part of a peace deal. However, the Kremlin swiftly ruled that out.

Until recently, Ukraine's western allies stood by Zelensky's position that all of Ukraine, including Crimea, should be returned.

Ukraine wants to join Nato, arguing that the western military alliance - in which members pledge to defend one another if attacked - is the best way to ensure its security. For Kyiv, Russia's full-scale invasion is proof that only Nato membership can guarantee its security.

However, Russia has consistently opposed the idea of Ukraine becoming a member, fearing it would bring Nato forces too close to its borders.

Nato members have consistently argued that Ukraine should become a Nato member in the future, with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer telling Zelensky that the country is on "an irreversible path" to membership.

But those guarantees are now looking less solid, after the US defence secretary downplayed the likelihood of Nato membership for Ukraine in any peace settlement.

Back in October, Zelensky laid out his victory plan to Ukraine's parliament, which included key points like Nato membership, joint US and EU protection of critical natural resources, and the containment of Russia via a non-nuclear strategic deterrent package deployed on Ukrainian soil.

The US president at the time, Joe Biden, was given a briefing on this plan - as were then-presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

It is unclear whether any part of Zelensky's plans will be taken forward to peace talks, but Hesgeth has warned there would be no US troops on the ground Ukraine in any future security arrangement.

Source: BBC

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Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict - January 2025

Summary

• At least 139 civilians were killed and 738 injured in Ukraine in January 2025, a 39 per cent increase from December 2024, and 27 per cent higher than casualties in January 2024 (169 killed; 524 injured).

• The vast majority of civilian casualties (89 per cent) and damage to educational and health facilities (93 per cent) occurred in territory controlled by Ukraine.

• Short-range drones, including First-Person-View drones, caused the highest number of casualties in January, exceeding the impact of any other weapon. In government-controlled parts of Kherson region, this weapon accounted for 70 percent of the casualties.

• Several attacks in Zaporizhzhia City on 8, 18, and 23 January caused a high number of civilian casualties (17 killed; 176 injured), contributing to the overall January increase.

• The majority of casualties (81 per cent) occurred near the frontline, primarily in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

• Russian armed forces conducted a large-scale, coordinated attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on 15 January, damaging at least our gas production, transportation and storage facilities in three regions. The attacks resulted in emergency power outages in seven regions of the country.

Macron convenes European leaders for Ukraine summit amid tension with US

Paris meeting aims to retake initiative on talks about Ukraine’s future as US and Russian delegates prepare to meet.

Emmanuel Macron will host a Paris summit of European defence powers on Monday to try to retake the initiative and demand the US ends its lockout of Europe from talks on Ukraine’s future.

With the US and Russia due to send high-powered delegations for talks in Riyadh this week – the first such meetings in two years – there are fears in Europe that Russia will relaunch its plan for imposed Ukrainian neutrality and a joint US-Russia carve-up with agreed spheres of influence.

Ukraine and many of its closest European allies believe Vladimir Putin wants to make a recasting of the postwar order his precondition for a ceasefire.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, told France Inter radio on Sunday: “The president will bring together the main European countries tomorrow for discussions on European security,” although he declined to say which countries would take part and said the meeting should not be “over-dramatised”.

European diplomatic sources said the Monday afternoon summit would include Germany, Poland, Italy and Denmark – representing the Baltic and Scandinavian countries – as well as the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

The Élysée Palace has not formally announced the summit but Keir Starmer will reportedly attend, as well as Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk.

The meeting will discuss what defence capabilities Europe could provide to give Ukraine credible security guarantees, including a plan for Ukraine to be given automatic Nato membership in the event of a clear ceasefire breach by Russia.

“Only the Ukrainians can decide to stop fighting,” Barrot said. The Ukrainians “will never stop as long as they are not sure the peace suggested to them will be long-lasting. Who can provide the guarantees? It’s the Europeans.”

An offer of Nato membership conditional on a Russian ceasefire breach, probably requiring the US to remain a backstop guarantor for Ukraine, has been promoted by some US senators and now has the backing of senior European leaders, including Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president.

Stubb led the warnings about Russia’s ambitions, saying there was no way the door should be opened for a Russian fantasy about spheres of influence. In any talks Ukraine had to be guaranteed “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity”, he said.

Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy on Ukraine, has briefed European leaders in Munich on the US negotiating strategy, which the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, described as unorthodox.

The US will be represented in Riyadh by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the national security adviser, Mike Waltz; and the special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

In a call on Saturday setting up the talks with the US, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, agreed the aim was to restore “mutually respectful interstate dialogue” in line with the tone set by the presidents.

The aim was also to remove “the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration”. The US has been pressing for the lifting of some sanctions as a goodwill gesture.

Macron has said he is not shocked or surprised by the speed with which Trump is acting to drive a ceasefire bargain, but officials fear Russia is seeking not only Ukraine’s neutrality through capping the size of its army and the ousting of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but also a spheres of influence agreement akin to the Yalta agreement signed over the heads of many nations in 1945 by the US, Britain and the Soviet Union.

That would put some western countries within “a sphere of coercion in which nations lives in fear”, one official said.

Ukraine has not been invited to the talks in Riyadh, but Kellogg has insisted Kyiv will be involved with the US acting as mediator, and Europe consulted. He claimed previous Ukraine peace deals foundered due to the large negotiating table.

Kellogg suggested tougher sanctions including on the Russian shadow fleet could be imposed if Russia rejected a durable settlement that protected Ukrainian sovereignty. He said a breach of the settlement terms would require serious agreed consequences.

The Paris summit, due to be attended by Keir Starmer, will also need to respond to a request by the US to spell out whether leaders are prepared to commit troops to a stabilisation force in the event of a ceasefire.

European leaders are divided in their response to Trump’s initiatives, with some predicting the opening of a fundamental rupture between Washington and Europe, and others arguing that if Europe can fulfil the US demand to improve its security offer then the transatlantic relationship can be repaired and Europe will find a place at the table on the future of Ukraine.

The new EU foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, convened an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Munich on Sunday morning and said initiatives would be announced soon. The EU has announced plans to relax EU fiscal debt rules to allow for more defence spending, and Kallas has already warned against premature concessions to Russia on issues such as Ukraine’s Nato membership.

The phrasing of a call to arms issued to Europe by Zelenskyy in Munich on Saturday was regarded as unhelpful because he couched it in terms of a unified European army, anathema to many voters, but Macron has long argued that a distinctive European force is required. He was also the first nearly a year ago to suggest European forces enter Ukraine on an initial training mission.

Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, said: “If the US wants us to step up in defence, it should have a national component, a Nato component, but I also believe a European EU component, EU subsidies for the defence industry to build up our capacity to produce, but also an EU force worthy of its name.”

He reiterated that having Polish troops on the ground in Ukraine was “not a consideration, because Poland’s duty to Nato is to protect the eastern flank, ie, its own territory.”

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said: “Our assessment is that Putin has shown no desire to negotiate save for Ukraine to capitulate, which is nothing that we can tolerate and nor can our American friends.”

Lammy said an enduring peace plan was needed, adding that previous truces such as Minsk agreements did not work because Russia breached the terms set out by the OSCE 20 times. “Something has got to be in place this time that works and that is why we think an irreversible pathway to Nato is important to keep on the table,” he said.

Zelenskyy has been adamant. “Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement. And the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” the Ukrainian president said.

“No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe. Europe must have a seat at the table when decisions about Europe are being made. Anything else is zero. If we’re left out of negotiations about our own future then we all lose.”

In a development that is worrying Ukraine, the US is applying pressure on it to hold elections this year. Kellogg said: “Most democratic countries hold elections in their wartime. I think it’s important that they do so. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person who could run.”

Source: The Guardian

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Zelensky forced to face tough new reality after Trump-Putin phone call

America is under new management. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is joining a growing list of US allies who are finding that the world according to Donald Trump is a colder, more uncertain and potentially more dangerous place for them.

It must have been bad enough for Zelensky to hear Trump's abrupt announcement that he had welcomed Russia's President Vladimir Putin back to international diplomacy with a 90-minute phone call, to be followed by a face-to-face meeting, perhaps in Saudi Arabia.

After Putin, the White House dialled up Zelensky's number. Speaking to journalists in Ukraine the morning after, Zelensky accepted the fact that Putin received the first call, "although to be honest, it's not very pleasant".

What stung Zelensky more was that Trump, who rang him after he spoke to Putin, seemed to regard him, at best, as a junior adjunct to any peace talks. One of Zelensky's many nightmares must be the prospect of Trump and Putin attempting to settle Ukraine's future without anyone else in the negotiation. He told the journalists that Ukraine "will not be able to accept any agreements" made without its involvement.

It was vital, he said, that "everything does not go according to Putin's plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his negotiations bilateral".

President Zelensky is heading to the Munich security conference, starting on Friday, where he will attempt to rally Ukraine's allies. He faces a tough meeting with Trump's vice president, JD Vance, who was one of the sternest critics of Joe Biden's aid to Ukraine.

The argument Zelensky will hear from the Americans is that Ukraine is losing and it needs to get real about what happens next. He will argue that Ukraine can win - with the right backing.

The European Union is worried too. After meeting and praising the Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov, the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas posted that Europe must have a central role in any negotiation. "Our priority now must be strengthening Ukraine and providing robust security guarantees," Kallas said.

Zelensky is painfully aware that while his European allies are sounding much more steadfast than the Americans, the US remains the world's strongest military power. He told the Guardian last week that "security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees".

Collectively, European allies have given Ukraine more money than the US. But the Americans have weapons and air defence systems - like the Patriot missile batteries that protect Kyiv - that Europeans simply cannot provide.

Just to drive home the point that everything had changed, Trump followed up yesterday's positive assessment of his talk with Putin with an upbeat early morning post on his platform, Truth Social, reflecting on "great talks with Russia and Ukraine yesterday". There was now a "good possibility of ending that horrible, very bloody war!!!"

Putin is not just back in conversation with the most powerful country in the world. With Trump, he may now see himself as the arbiter of the endgame in the war he started when he broke international law with the all-out invasion of Ukraine almost exactly three years ago.

At the White House, Trump seemed to suggest that the huge numbers of dead and wounded in the Russian military gave some kind of legitimacy to Putin's demand to keep the land captured and annexed by Russia.

His defence secretary Pete Hegseth's remarks at a Nato meeting in Brussels were more direct. He wanted Ukraine to be "sovereign and prosperous". But "we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective". "Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering."

Trump is still at the easy end of what could become an impossibly tough diplomatic challenge. Boasting that he has the key to ending the Russo-Ukraine war is one thing. Making that happen is something else.

His declaration before any talks with Russia start that Ukraine will not join Nato nor get back all its occupied land has been widely criticised as a poor start by a man who claims to be the world's best dealmaker.

The veteran Swedish diplomat and politician Carl Bildt posted an ironic rebuke on X.   "It's certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started. Not even Chamberlain went that low in 1938. That Munich ended very bad anyhow."

Bildt posted a photo of Britain's then prime minister Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich in 1938, waving the notorious and worthless agreement he had made with Adolf Hitler - the price of which was the capitulation and break-up of Czechoslovakia and a faster slide towards a second world war.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin was widely portrayed in the west as the new threat to European peace. Trump's approach to him is very different. Zelensky's declared objective is to regain Ukraine's lost territory, which amounts to around a fifth of its total land mass. He also wants Ukraine to become a full member of Nato.

Putin insists that any peace deal would require Ukraine to give up the land Russia has captured, as well as areas it has not occupied, including the city of Zaporizhzhia which has a population of more than half a million. Ukraine would also become neutral, demilitarised and would never join Nato.

Ukraine's demands will not be acceptable to Moscow, and Trump has indicated he doesn't like them either. But Russia's amount to an ultimatum, not a serious peace proposal. Trump, once a developer, likes deals that involve tangible real estate. But Putin wants more than land. He wants Ukraine to go back to the relationship it had with the Kremlin during the days when it was part of the Soviet Union. For that to happen, Ukraine would have to lose its independence and sovereignty.

Biden offered Ukraine enough not to lose, because he took Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons if Nato intervened seriously. Trump must be aware of nuclear danger, but he also believes backing Ukraine indefinitely is a bad deal for the US, and he can do better.

As for the Europeans, he might force them to face up to the gross disparity between their military promises to Ukraine and their military capabilities. Only Poland and the Baltic states are backing their public statements about the threat from Russia with qualitatively increased defence spending.

With Russia grinding forward on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, this is the toughest moment Zelensky will have faced since the dark and desperate first months of the war, when Ukraine fought off Russia's attack on Kyiv.

Source: BBC

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Europe fears Trump-Putin ‘dirty deal’ as Ukraine scrambles for a seat at the table

 US President Donald Trump’s “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has sparked fears in Europe of a “dirty deal” being struck to end the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Moscow without Kyiv’s involvement.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said Ukraine would not accept a peace deal negotiated by the United States and Russia alone. He conceded it was “not pleasant” that Trump spoke with Putin before calling Kyiv, calling into doubt the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” that has largely held over three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Both Trump and his defense secretary Pete Hegseth have since said they believe negotiations will involve Ukraine, though Trump, when asked by a reporter on Wednesday if he saw Ukraine as an equal partner in peace negotiations responded only “that’s an interesting question.”

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, warned against a “quick fix” and a “dirty deal” to end the war, saying that Europe and Ukraine must be at the table for talks because no peace deal can be implemented without their involvement.

For European members of NATO the future suddenly looks a whole lot more uncertain. Since the foundation of the alliance, Europe has relied on the American nuclear umbrella, the deployment of sizable US military contingents in Europe and the vast US defense budget and weapons pipeline.

Trump’s call with Putin, and his subsequent announcement that negotiations would begin immediately on reaching a deal in Ukraine, blindsided European leaders and threatened to leave them with the grunt work of funding and overseeing any settlement.

In other words: Washington will do the deal (and may get paid in rare earth minerals by Ukraine as Trump has demanded), and Europe will pick up the tab.

 NATO official subsequently briefed that “NATO membership is not necessarily something that needs to be negotiated with Russia. It’s something that’s a decision for allies and that decision has been linked to when the time is right.”

‘Any deal behind our backs will not work’

The Europeans, both in NATO and in the EU – are struggling to be heard as Trump focuses on doing a deal with Putin to end what he has called the pointless bloodshed in Ukraine.

Kallas said that “any deal behind our backs will not work.” She added that “appeasement also always, always fails. So Ukraine will continue to resist and Europe will continue to back Ukraine.”

The allies have been fond of the mantra “No settlement in Ukraine without Ukraine.” That might now be expanded to “…without Ukraine and Europe.” Six European governments, including France, the UK and Germany, said Wednesday night in a panicked joint statement: “We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies.… Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.”

Speaking to CNN Thursday, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė noted that Europe provided Ukraine with $125 billion in aid last year (much of it financial support), and the US $88 billion, “so I think we earned a place at the table.”

Šakalienė and her Baltic counterparts, on Russia’s borders, are especially anxious at the turn of events. She said there was a stark choice: “Whether we decide to fall under the illusion that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are going to find a solution for all of us, and that would be a deadly trap, or we will, as Europe, embrace our own economic, financial and military capacity.”

Šakalienė acknowledged that historically the US had been “paying for our security. And that needs to be corrected.”

Her Estonian counterpart, Hanno Pevkur, cited the poet Alexandre Dumas - “One for all, all for one” – as the bedrock of the transatlantic relationship, and also spoke of raising defense spending.

Flat-footed

But production lines, investment in new technology and recruitment do not happen overnight. There’s been intense talk since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began of ramping up defense industries in Europe. But that’s a multi-year process.

The head of French defense giant Dassault, Éric Trappier, said last year that “Europe believes all of a sudden that working on defence is a good thing… Between that realisation and the reality of building a European defense industry it’s going to take many years and even many decades,” he told the Financial Times.

Those words were echoed Thursday by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We are not producing enough and this is a collective problem…. Russia is producing in three months in ammunition, but the whole of the alliance is producing in a year.”

European weapons manufacturers have also complained about arcane decision-making processes in Brussels, where the European Commission has angled for a much greater role in procurement.

And this sudden increase in spending is expected at a time of sluggish growth and tight public finances.

The events of 1989, when the Soviet bloc evaporated, left a legacy of defense cutbacks in the West that are only now being reversed.

Together, as Zelensky noted this week, Ukraine and Europe have fewer men under arms than Russia. Zelensky is doubtful that Europe or another monitoring force alone is up to the task of securing any peace. “I don’t think any UN troops or anything like that have ever really helped anyone,” he told the Guardian this week. “We are for a (peacekeeping) contingent if it is part of security guarantees, and I would underline again that without America this is impossible.”

With Hegseth saying there is no way the US will commit troops to some sort of 1,000-kilometer long demilitarized zone stretching from the Black Sea to Kharkiv, there is no clarity over what those guarantees might be. Zelensky said Thursday that rather than a contingent of maybe 5,000 peacekeepers, there would need to be 100,000 as part of a “deterrent package.”

Some European ministers fear that Trump fatally misunderstands Putin. German defense minister Boris Pistorius said Thursday he regretted the new administration taking Ukraine’s prospective membership of NATO off the table immediately and added: “Putin is constantly provoking the West and attacking us again. It would be naive to believe the threat would actually diminish after such a peace agreement.”

Their next chance for allies to temper – or at least interrogate – the administration’s strategy will be at this weekend’s Munich Security conference, to be attended by US Vice-President JD Vance and Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

Europe sidelined?

Moscow, of course, is gloating at the relegation of Europe to bystander. Responding to a question from CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “many in the West, including the leaders of the European Union, were shocked when a simple, normal conversation took place between two polite, educated individuals.”

Europeans may now be forgiven for glancing backwards to existential moments in their modern history.

One is the Munich agreement of 1938 that gave Hitler free rein to continue Nazi aggression against allies that were neither armed nor ready for war against a fully militarized society.

The other is the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that suppressed the Prague Spring, an effort at liberalization that threatened Moscow’s dominance of Eastern Europe, just as Ukraine’s sharp tilt to the EU was seen as a threat by Putin.

At that time, US Senator Henry Jackson told NATO parliamentarians that while there was little disagreement in the US about the value of the Atlantic Alliance, there was “a widespread feeling in my country that so many Europeans were less concerned with the security of their homelands than we were.

“To many Americans it has seemed that a prosperous Western Europe was not making a reasonably proportionate contribution to the common defense effort,” Jackson said. “I am convinced that the future vitality of the alliance depends in very large measure on the degree and quality of European efforts to keep NATO strong.”

Fast forward half a century and the demands of the Trump administration that European members of NATO, many of which have struggled to reach a defense spending target of 2% of GDP, are now expected to hit 4 or 5% - (a level higher even than the US) and step beyond that security umbrella.

Source: CNN

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New military assistance from European partners

Ukraine's European partners announced new military assistance to Ukraine amid the February 12 Ukraine Defense Contact Group (the Ramstein format) meeting. 

The United Kingdom (UK) pledged 150 million pounds (about $188 million) in military support, including drones, "dozens" of battle tanks and armored vehicles, and air defense systems, and confirmed plans to provide Ukraine with an additional 4.5 billion pounds (about $5.6 billion) worth of military assistance in 2025. The UK stated that it will provide Ukraine will over 50 armored and protective vehicles, including modernized T-72 tanks, by the end of Spring 2025.   Germany committed to supplying 100 IRIS-T air defense system missiles to Ukraine in the near future, and German defense company Helsing announced the delivery of 6,000 AI-equipped drones to Ukraine.  Norway joined the Ukrainian Drone Coalition and revealed plans to establish and equip Ukraine's "Northern Brigade" as part of a broader Nordic initiative in which the Nordic countries will equip and train one Ukrainian battalion each. The Netherlands announced the delivery of 25 YPR armored infantry vehicles, Latvia announced the donation of 42 armored personnel carriers, and Estonia also  pledged to allocate 0.25 percent of its GDP for military assistance to Ukraine in 2025.

Source: ISW

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Nordic, Baltic countries say they will boost support for Ukraine

The Nordic and Baltic countries on Friday gave renewed backing to Ukraine's fight against Russia, promising in a joint statement to further increase their support.

"Ukraine must be able to prevail against Russia's war of aggression, to ensure a just and lasting peace," the leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden said.

“The outcome of the war will have fundamental and long-lasting effects on European and transatlantic security,” they added.

Source: Reuters