According to Artis Pabriks, it is necessary to bring it to €15 billionLONDON, September 3.
/tass/. Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said that the German authorities should significantly increase the volume of military assistance provided to Ukraine.
"I risk upsetting [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz or anyone else in Germany <...>, but from the point of view of Latvia, which is shared by the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, a country like Germany should provide Ukraine with support that would be proportionally equal to ours," Pabriks said in a statement. published on Friday an interview in the British newspaper The Times.
According to the publication, Latvia has allocated funds in the amount of 0.8% of national GDP to support Ukraine since the end of February: we are talking about the largest share of the budget among Western allies, with the exception of Estonia. Judging by this indicator, the contribution of Riga to the support of the Kiev authorities is four times greater than the contribution of London, 10 times that of Berlin. According to Pabriks, Germany needs to increase the assistance provided to Ukraine 10 times and bring it to €15 billion.
At the same time, talking about the tough position of the Baltic countries in relation to the Russian Federation, the Latvian minister added that "the structure of power is changing in Europe" and it is no longer possible to talk about the "German-French engine" of the European Union.
