Ukraine expects €2.9bn fund for US weapons to fight Russia, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine expects to have around $3.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in a fund by next month to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its war effort against Russia's full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.

The financial arrangement known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) pools contributions from NATO members, with the exception of the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.

"We received more than $2 billion from our partners specifically for the PURL program," Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with visiting European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.

"We will receive additional money in October. I think we will have somewhere around $3.5-3.6 billion."

Zelenskyy declined to provide details of what weapons the first shipments would include, but said that they would definitely contain missiles for Patriot air defence missile systems and munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

The Patriot systems are vital to defend against Russian missile attacks. The HIMARS systems have significantly bolstered the Ukrainian military’s precision-strike capability.

No end in sight

An end to the more than three-year war appears no closer, despite months of US-led peace efforts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for peace talks, telling reporters on Wednesday that "we remain open for negotiations and prefer to settle the Ukrainian crisis by political and diplomatic means."

However, Moscow has raised objections about key proposals and negotiations haven't moved forward.

The latest Russian overnight aerial attacks caused disruption to Ukrainian rail and power services, officials said on Wednesday.

In addition, a Russian glide bomb struck a town in the southern Kherson region, wounding three women and a three-year-old girl, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Funding for Ukraine

Meanwhile, a US-Ukraine fund devised to spur investments in the Ukrainian mineral sector is set to launch with $150 million (€126 million) of seed capital, senior Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

The US International Development Finance Corporation agency will commit $75 million (€63 million) to the fund, with Ukraine matching that contribution, Ukraine’s Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev said.

"This is enough to launch the first significant investments," Sobolev said, describing the fund as a "beacon" that could draw additional support from other international institutions.

The US-Ukraine deal on developing the Ukrainian mineral sector was signed in April.

It gives the US preferential access to new Ukrainian mining projects and is meant to spur reconstruction and enable continued military aid to Kyiv from Washington.

Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said that the fund would initially focus on energy, infrastructure and critical mineral projects, with a goal of financing three projects by the end of 2026.