Russian ambassador says Norway's reserves for aid to the AFU have been depleted

Norway is running out of its own stocks of weapons for supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and the role of purchases for these purposes from defense companies is growing, Russian Ambassador to Oslo Nikolay Korchunov said on 30 November.

"Until now, a significant part of supplies for the needs of the AFU has been made from the availability of the Norwegian Armed Forces through the transfer of obsolete weapons mothballed in military warehouses or queued for renewal. As publicly recognized here, this source is now close to exhaustion, and the role of purchasing new weapons from the local and Western military-industrial complex, including within the framework of various multilateral mechanisms, is increasing," he said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to the diplomat, Norway's participation in the West's attempts to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia, which are doomed to failure, narrows the space for interaction between Moscow and Oslo.

The total amount of Norwegian military aid to Kiev is about $3 billion, of which more than $1.5 billion will be allocated in 2024, Korchunov specified. At the same time, he noted that the intensity of Norway's military pumping of Ukraine has been increasing since 2022 in line with the West's efforts to prolong and escalate the Ukrainian conflict.

Earlier, on November 28, the Norwegian government announced plans to extend support for Kiev until 2030 and increase to €3 billion the aid allocated to it in 2025. Also, the kingdom's authorities set a new lower limit of annual funding for Ukraine at around €1.29bn.

Western countries have stepped up military and financial support for Kiev against the backdrop of Russia's special operation to protect Donbass, which was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, after the situation in the region worsened due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.