“At the moment, I think that this is the most powerful army in Europe. Ukraine has been waging a large -scale war for more than three years, has been introducing innovations very quickly and does it daily. This, of course, distinguishes it from other armies in Europe, which conduct exercises and fulfill missions in certain parts of the world, but not in the war of this scale and with such rapid changes,” he said.
At the same time, the minister noted that in some aspects, for example, in the Air Forces of the Armed Forces, Ukraine still has more experience in the Soviet past, but now it is actively moving on to NATO standards. There are directions where this development continues, and Europe helps in this, he said.
“But if you look as a whole, then, in my opinion, Ukraine currently has the largest, most powerful and in separate aspects of the innovative army in Europe,” Breklmans said.
He said that the Netherlands want to significantly invest in Ukrainian industry. For example, they invested in the initiative of the Drone Line (“Drones”), which unites four Ukrainian producers of drones, creating the drones necessary on the front line. But the country intends to cooperate more with Ukrainian industry. The possibilities of creating joint ventures in the Netherlands are also considered so that part of the production can work there, since the aggressor country Russia attacks production sites in Ukraine, the minister said.
Context
The Netherlands actively support Ukraine in the war against the aggressor of the Russian Federation, providing military, financial and humanitarian assistance. In particular, this is one of the countries which transmitted to Ukraine the Patriot air defense systemand also F-16 fighters.
On January 16, Veldkampp during a visit to Kyiv announced the allocation of assistance to Ukraine for € 27 million.
On February 18, the House of Representatives of the Netherlands supported the resolution, which the government called on to occupy a “constructive position” about the country's participation in the “vocational peacekeeping forces” in Ukraine. Most of the deputies of the lower house of the Netherlands parliament voted for supporting the resolution.
On March 6, it became known that the Netherlands government was discussing the allocation of a new package of assistance to Ukraine by € 3.5 billion in 2026. The total amount of assistance from the Netherlands to Ukraine at that time amounted to about € 5.8 billion.
On April 11, Brexhelmans said that his country allocates € 150 million to strengthen the air defense of Ukraine.
