KYIV: The Netherlands is providing Ukraine with 350 million euros for F-16 fighter jet ammunition and advanced reconnaissance drones, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren announced in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Speaking to Reuters in an interview at the conclusion of a two-day trip to Ukraine, Ollongren said she had come to show solidarity and announce the new aid package.
At the Ramstein group meeting of Ukraine’s allies, Ollongren said 150 million euros will fund guided air-to-ground missiles that can be fired from F-16s, while 200 million will go to Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) drones, according to a Dutch defense ministry press release.
The Netherlands has pledged 2 billion euros in military aid for Ukraine in 2024. A significant share will fund ammunition and drones, which Kyiv has said are desperately needed to end battlefield losses against Russia.
Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States expect to deliver the first of dozens of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine this summer after establishing a pilot training program and donating aircraft.
In Kyiv, Ollongren said the Danish aircraft would arrive first, but they would be followed by the first Dutch planes later in 2024.
“I’m very confident that we will start delivering F-16s this summer... Denmark first, and we have a schedule ... so in the second half of the year the Dutch F-16s will be going this way.”
Asked about the pause in US military aid as Republicans in Congress block a crucial aid bill, Ollongren said that while Ukraine had many friends in Europe, continuing without US support would be difficult.
“That would not be easy, and I hope it is not the direction we are going in,” she said.
Ollongren said European production of ammunition would be scaled up “significantly” by the end of the year so that the artillery munition deficit faced currently by Ukraine would not be repeated.
“We have to be realistic, and consider the possibility that it might be a lengthy war, and it is better to plan for a long war,” she said.
Ollongren said the Dutch armed forces were learning lessons from the ramping up of drone warfare in Ukraine.
“This technology has developed more quickly than anybody would have anticipated two years ago, and we have to learn.”
Dutch drone technology companies Deltaquad, Avalor AI and AEC Skyline discussed cooperation with Ukrainian officials to increase Kyiv’s production capabilities. Several industrial contracts were signed with Ukraine, the Dutch Defense Ministry said.
During Ollongren’s visit to the eastern Dnipro region, Ukrainian military leaders repeated their calls for more air defense systems, spare parts and ammunition which is needed to halt advances by better-equipped Russian forces.
Dutch providing Ukraine with F-16 ammunition, drones, minister says
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Dutch providing Ukraine with F-16 ammunition, drones, minister says
- At the Ramstein group meeting of Ukraine’s allies, Ollongren said 150 million euros will fund guided air-to-ground missiles that can be fired from F-16s
- The Netherlands has pledged 2 billion euros in military aid for Ukraine in 2024
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
