The PURL has malfunctioned, and Kyiv finds a way forward with NATO

NATO will allow Ukraine to purchase weapons, ammunition and equipment through its central procurement agency, “so that Kyiv can obtain supplies for its defence more quickly and more cheaply”, wrote the Financial Times.

Ukraine is building a partnership with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), bringing its defence industry closer to its allies and thereby gaining the opportunity to utilise an additional channel alongside bilateral agreements with individual countries. The head of the Ukrainian mission to NATO, Alyona Getmanchuk, told the British newspaper that she hopes this agreement will give her country “significant access to NATO’s defence industry ecosystem”. The decision was taken last April, and last week the NSPA organised an event in Kyiv attended by 150 Ukrainian companies.

The issue has now become more urgent, as the United States is also calling into question arms supplies already purchased by European countries through the PURL mechanism, devised last autumn after the Trump administration decided to stop providing its weapons to Kyiv free of charge. The Ukrainian government has also negotiated numerous bilateral agreements with its European partners, offering its expertise and technology in the defence against Russian aggression, but a centralised mechanism is essential now that everything that seemed certain under Trump is no longer so.