Sánchez announced this Thursday that Spain will buy weapons from USA to send it for free to Ukraine in order to help the Government of Volodímir Zelenski to resist Russia’s war of aggression.
The president thus joins the program PURL which the Atlantic Alliance launched last August after Trump had interrupted military aid to kyiv since the beginning of his mandate.
Thanks to PURL, Ukraine can continue receiving military equipment that is only manufactured in the US, but Those who pay are the European allies and not Washington.
Sánchez’s announcement that he is joining PURL represents a radical change of position, since its Until very recently, the Government had ruled out participating in this program purchase of American weapons.
The Spanish Executive justified its refusal with the argument that Our country already has a bilateral agreement with Ukraine worth 1 billion euros per year in military aid and therefore was not going to participate in the scheme designed to please Trump.
However, after several days of constant pressure from the US president, Sánchez confirmed upon his arrival at the European Council that “We are going to join this program that NATO has launched“.
“Spain is a country committed to the Atlantic Alliance and without a doubt also committed to the defense and support of Ukraine at all levels“, highlighted the President of the Government.
Sánchez spoke by phone with Zelensky himself last Wednesday and it was then that he informed him that Spain was going to buy American weapons for kyiv.
The President of the Government has also responded to the latest broadside that Trump launched at him this Wednesday during his meeting with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte.
Sánchez assures that Trump knows that since he became president of the Government he has fulfilled the previous objective of raising defense spending to 2%, something that according to him he has criticized the previous Executive of Mariano Rajoydespite the fact that he was the one who made the commitment at the 2014 Wales summit.
“In 2017 what we found was a Spain that only dedicated 0.9% of its GDP to the Defense budget,” Sánchez criticized.
“We are a reliable country, we are a country that fulfills our commitments. It is true that we have reached an agreement with NATO on capabilities, which is really what is important,” says the President of the Government.