Netherlands allocates additional $1.5 billion in aid for Ukraine

The Netherlands has allocated an additional one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in military aid and 400 million euros ($425 million) for reconstruction, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 12 after a phone call with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Under Rutte, the Netherlands has taken a proactive role in supporting Ukraine, spearheading the fighter jet coalition and pledging to deliver 24 F-16 jets to Ukraine.

Zelensky said that the new aid batch was provided in the framework of the 10-year bilateral security agreement between the states, signed on March 1 in Kharkiv.

"Thank you to Mark, thank you to the Dutch people! This is an exemplary case of supporting Ukraine," the president wrote on his Telegram channel.

On the call, the parties discussed further Ukrainian-Dutch cooperation in speeding up the delivery of artillery shells, ammunition, and air defense by allies to Ukraine, as well as in the upcoming global peace summit, the next edition of which Switzerland will host in June.

Zelensky also invited the Netherlands to the summit and thanked it for the "efficient" Restoring Justice for Ukraine conference held on April 2 in The Hague.

The Dutch broadcaster RTL news earlier reported on April 11 that the Netherlands would allocate an additional 400 million euros ($425 million) to Ukraine, increasing its total pledge for 2024 to more than 2.4 billion euros ($2.5 billion).

The Netherlands also recently pledged 10 million euros ($10.8 million) to help Ukraine investigate Russian war crimes. New financial assistance was announced during the Restoring Justice for Ukraine event in early April.

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