US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has clarified that President Donald Trump’s statement about NATO supposedly funding American weapons for Ukraine referred to an existing mechanism, whereby European allies purchase US-made weapons to transfer them to Kyiv.

Source: Rubio on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Trump said he had reached an agreement under which the North Atlantic Alliance would pay for American assistance to Ukraine.

Commenting on this, Rubio said it was not about a new scheme for supplying arms to Ukraine, but rather one of the existing formats.

He explained that this involves European countries purchasing American-made weapons and then transferring them to Ukraine.

Quote: “At the end of the day, some of the systems that Ukraine requires are systems that Europe doesn’t make. They would have to purchase them from the United States. In addition to that, I’d point to the fact that a number of the defensive weapons that Ukraine seeks, our allies in NATO have them… and some have placed orders for that.”

Details: Rubio said that the US is urging its allies to transfer the necessary weapons to Ukraine from their own stockpiles and then purchase replacements from the United States.

Quote: “It’s a lot faster to move something, for example, from Germany to Ukraine, than it is to order it from a factory and get it there. So there are a couple of different ways to approach it, but the key is that there are exciting US systems within Europe right now that could be transferred to Ukraine. And then the Europeans could purchase the replacements from the United States. That’s one aspect of what, I think, the president was referring to yesterday.”

Background:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that Germany and Norway are ready to buy three Patriot air defence systems for Ukraine from a US manufacturer.It was also unofficially reported that Trump is preparing, for the first time during his current term, to send US$300 million worth of weapons from US stockpiles to Ukraine under the Presidential Drawdown Authority – a mechanism frequently employed by Joe Biden.

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