Spain joins NATO initiative to buy US weapons for Ukraine

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday morning that Madrid has been studying a contribution to a NATO scheme to jointly procure and deliver US weapons to Ukraine.  

Spain is “a country committed to the Atlantic Alliance and undoubtedly also committed to defending and supporting Ukraine at all levels”, he said, before announcing Madrid will join the programme.

This comes hours after US President Donald Trump called out once again Spain’s low defence spending commitments, as reported in Firepower.

“We have been studying, logically, what joint purchases we can make during all these weeks since the NATO initiative was launched” the prime minister told the press ahead of the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Launched last July under the coordination of US President Donald Trump, the PURL initiative enables NATO countries to buy weapons from American stocks – including those in Europe – directly for delivery to Ukraine. 

Spain’s decision to join follows a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday in which Zelenskyy raised the urgent need for weapons delivery to counter Russian attacks, El País reported.

Spanish defence minister Margarita Robles also discussed the possibility of joining the initiative with her Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal on Tuesday. 

It is unclear, however, how much money Spain would commit.

As of last week, more then half of NATO allies had signed up to the PURL initiative, after NATO defence ministers met at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. 

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte did not specify which new countries had joined the initiative at the time. 

So far, only The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Germany and Canada have consolidated four packages, which are worth $500 million each.   

Estonia, Belgium, Lithuania, and Luxembourg pledged additional contributions, but have yet to form a full package. Latvia also announced an intention to contribute. 

Sánchez also reiterated Madrid’s commitments to defence spending, after NATO leaders agreed to spend 3.5% of GDP in traditional defence in June. “We have reached an agreement on capabilities, which is what really matters”, he said. 

CORRECTION: This article originally specified the Spanish and Ukrainian defence ministers met on Monday 20 October. They in fact met on Tuesday 21 October.

(cp)