PM Rutte: Netherlands Ready To Send Armor To Ukraine, Considers Shipping Heavy Weapons

Dutch PM Mark Rutte. (Wikimedia Commons/EU2017EE Estonian Presidency)

JAKARTA - The Netherlands is ready to send armored vehicles to Ukraine, and is considering sending additional heavy weapons, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte wrote on Twitter after a phone call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

"In a phone call with (President Zelensky), (Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren) and I expressed our support, as Russia embarks on a new offensive," PM Rutte wrote, as reported by TASS, April 19.

"The Netherlands will send heavier materials to Ukraine, including armored vehicles. Together with the allies, we are looking at ways of supplying additional heavy materials," he continued.

Last month, Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said the Netherlands and other NATO countries would continue to send weapons to Ukraine even when these shipments could become targets for Russian attacks.

"The Netherlands and other countries will continue to send weapons to Ukraine," Ollongren said ahead of a meeting of NATO Defense Ministers in Brussels, Belgium.

"Ukraine has the right to defend itself, we will continue to support it," he stressed.

It is known that Russia said any cargo with weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for their armed forces. Recently, Russia claimed to have succeeded in destroying the logistics center for sending weapons from abroad.

The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said the logistics center, which was destroyed by the Russian aerospace forces, was the arrival of foreign arms aid in the past six days.

According to Konashenkov, the logistics facility is the 124th Joint Logistics Support Center of the Ukrainian Logistics Forces Command in Lviv. The attack was carried out using high-precision air missiles.

"Logistics centers and large shipments of foreign weapons that arrived in Ukraine over the past six days from the US and European countries were destroyed," he said.

As previously reported, the US and a number of countries, especially from Europe, are planning to add aid shipments to Ukraine, in anticipation of an increase in attacks by Russia, which are predicted to be concentrated in the eastern region of the country.