Netherlands join Ukraine IT coalition and allocate €10 mln for cybersecurity

At a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense in the Ramstein format on January 23, the Netherlands joined the IT coalition.

The new member of the coalition has already contributed €10 million.

11 other countries are members of the initiative: Ukraine, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the United States.

Separately from the Netherlands, Denmark has allocated over €12 million for Ukraine's cyber defense within the IT Coalition.

The funds will be used for cybersecurity projects and are an important contribution to the long-term support of the state's cyber defense.

The IT Coalition is an ad hoc group of states within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Ramstein Format) led by Estonia and Luxembourg.

On September 19, the defense ministers of Ukraine, Estonia and Luxembourg held a kick-off meeting of the new IT Coalition within the Ramstein Format.

Estonia (€500,000) and Luxembourg (€10 million) previously contributed to the IT coalition. Lithuania and Latvia also donated material assistance in licenses and equipment.

Norway and the UK have created a maritime coalition to support Ukraine. The new association will supply ships and other vehicles to Ukrainian defenders for combat operations at sea.

The UK was supposed to transfer two minesweepers to Ukraine as part of the new naval coalition. Turkey, referring to the convention according to which the straits under its control should be closed to warships of the belligerents, said it would not allow them to pass.

Ukraine and Latvia are creating a Coalition of Drones and Electronic Warfare Systems, which will be joined by other allied countries.

Ukraine's partner countries have been discussing increasing the number of planes to be transferred to the Air Force: as soon as all technical issues are resolved, Kyiv will receive F-16s.

On January 18, France, the United States, and more than 20 other countries created an artillery coalition in Paris to help Ukraine repel Russian aggression.