Ottawa (AFP) April 8, 2024 - Canada announced Monday a boost in defense spending that will see the purchase of long range missile systems, new tactical helicopters and a greater Arctic presence, though it will fall short of NATO spending targets. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference at the Trenton, Ontario, military base that the government is also looking to add new submarines to patrol its coastlines, and is in talks to join the AUKUS security partnership, where the United States, Britain and Australia cooperate on intelligence. In the Canadian government's budget next week ..read more

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) April 2, 2024 - NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has proposed creating a 100-billion-euro ($108-billion), five-year fund for Ukraine in a push to get the alliance more involved in sending weapons to Kyiv, officials said Tuesday. NATO foreign ministers will hold preliminary talks on the plan in Brussels Wednesday as they seek to forge a support package for Ukraine by a July summit in Washington. "Foreign ministers will discuss the best way to organise NATO's support for Ukraine, to make it more powerful, predictable and enduring," a NATO official said. "No final decisions ar ..read more

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) April 3, 2024 - NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday debated the creation of a 100-billion-euro fund for Ukraine, as alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg urged them to guarantee long-term arms supplies for Kyiv's outgunned forces. Stoltenberg pitched the five-year fund for Kyiv and a plan to deepen NATO's involvement in delivering weapons in a bid to shield support in the face of a potential return by Donald Trump to the US presidency. The NATO secretary general said allies "agreed to move forward with planning for a greater NATO role in coordinating security assistance and ..read more

Paris (AFP) Mar 30, 2024 - France's defence minister said Paris would deliver "hundreds" of armoured personnel carriers and anti-aircraft missiles as part a new aid package to Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. "To hold such as extensive front line, the Ukrainian army needs for example our VAB vehicles: it's absolutely essential for troop mobility," Sebastien Lecornu told La Tribune newspaper in an interview published late Saturday. France is currently phasing out its VAB fleet -- some of them more than 40 years old -- with new Griffon armoured vehicles, but Lecornu said the older m ..read more

Jakarta (AFP) Mar 31, 2024 - Firefighters have managed to extinguish a blaze that levelled an ammunition warehouse just outside the Indonesian capital after a series of explosions, an officer said Sunday. The first explosion was heard at around 6:00 pm (1100 GMT) on Saturday at a depot used to store expired ammo inside a military complex near Jakarta. Twenty-seven fire trucks were deployed to the location and firefighters managed to douse the blaze by 3:45 am Sunday. "We can confirm the fire has been put out, but we are still conducting the cooling down process at the moment to anticipate the ..read more

Washington (AFP) Mar 19, 2024 - The United States on Tuesday approved a $2.2 billion sale of advanced battle tanks to Bahrain, a Gulf Arab ally once under an arms embargo over a crackdown on Shiite dissent. The State Department said it had notified Congress it is ready to sell 50 M1A2 Abrams tanks, generally used for ground warfare, to the small island nation which has tense relations with nearby Iran. "The proposed sale will improve Bahrain's capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that can deter adversaries and provide the capability to participate in reg ..read more

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) Mar 13, 2024 - EU member states on Wednesday agreed to add five billion euros ($5.5 billion) to a central fund to pay for weapons sent to Ukraine. The move provides a welcome boost for Kyiv as support from its other major backer, the United States, wavers and its outgunned forces struggle to hold back Russia. Belgium, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said ambassadors from the bloc's 27 nations had agreed "in principle" on the plan to support arms supplies to Kyiv in 2024 with five billion euros. In the wake of Moscow's 2022 invasion, the European Union for the ..read more

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 14, 2024 - Denmark plans to conscript women into its military, it defense ministry said, as it seeks to bolster its ranks while strengthening its armed forces. The Nordic nation announced plans Wednesday to implement changes to its conscription policy that will permit women to be drafted, increase the length of service from four to 11 months and see the number of conscripts jump by 300 to 5,000. Denmark's Armed Forces is undergoing an "historic strengthening" and an increase in soldiers is needed to staff operational units, which is requiring it to rethink its conscrip ..read more

Prague (AFP) Mar 8, 2024 - The Czech Republic prime minister said Friday an international initiative to buy arms for Ukraine from outside Europe had raised enough money to buy 300,000 shells, revising down figures given by the president. President Petr Pavel said Thursday Ukraine would get 800,000 shells within weeks as 18 donor countries had pledged funding. "We have managed to raise enough money to buy the first batch of 300,000 artillery shells," Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in an update. "However, our goal is to deliver much more! We keep seeking partners so that we can continue to supp ..read more

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 12, 2024 - The Biden administration on Tuesday unveiled plans to provide a further $300 million in military aid for Ukraine's war with Russia. On Tuesday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan noted that "unanticipated cost savings" with Department of Defense military contracts lead to a "modest amount of funding available" in one-time, cost-saving measures to aid Ukraine "without impacting U.S. military readiness." The package going to Ukraine will contain a number of weaponry systems and parts such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, additional ammunition for HIMARS ..read more