On 16 April, the Kingdom of Denmark announced the allocation of DKK 200 million ( USD 28.5 million) for the purchase of weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Ukrainian manufacturers. These funds are part of a new aid package for Ukraine. In total, approximately DKK 2.2 billion has been allocated.

This is the first and so far unprecedented decision to purchase military equipment for the Ukrainian Defence Forces from Ukrainian manufacturers at the expense of another country.

This decision is extremely important for both the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian economy. The production capacity of our defence industry far exceeds the purchasing potential of the state budget.

"The capacity of the Ukrainian defence industry is about USD 20 billion. At the same time, Ukraine has only USD 6 billion to buy arms. Roughly speaking, we have only one third of all the machine tools available in the country in operation because we don't have enough money to provide orders for the rest," explained Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister for Strategic Industries.

The best way out of this situation is to convince our partners that we are ready to buy weapons for Ukraine and to do so in Ukraine.

"This is how the ZBROYARI: Manufacturing Freedom" project was born. This is a global fundraising campaign, a strategic collection - not by people, but by entire nations. Its goal is to raise USD 10 billion for the production of Ukrainian weapons this year. Today we have the first donation. This is a landmark decision, it opens the way for other countries - and we are incredibly grateful to the Danish government and the Danish people for their leadership," said Oleksandr Kamyshin.

According to him, a huge team in Ukraine and Denmark worked on this decision.

"I am grateful to my President, the teams of the Office of the President and the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the entire team of the Ministry of Strategic Industries, parliamentarians and others involved," said Oleksandr Kamyshin.