Minister of Defence of the Netherlands visits Kharkiv and sees the consequences of Russian attacks
The Minister of Defense of the Netherlands, Ruben Breckelmans, made an unannounced visit to Kharkiv on October 6 to personally see the consequences of the Russian bombings. In his publications on the social network X, he shared photos documenting the extent of the destruction in the city, which is only 40 km from the border with Russia.
Brekelmans described what he saw, emphasizing the depth of the tragedy: “I witnessed the consequences of intense Russian bombing. Residential apartments were destroyed, there were power outages, and children were forced to study in bunkers.” He also emphasized that the only way to effectively protect Ukraine from such attacks is to push Russian troops further away from Ukrainian cities.
The minister recalled that he had previously advocated the possibility of Ukraine using Dutch weapons to attack military facilities on the territory of Russia, noting that international law allows such actions in the framework of self-defense. He emphasized that Ukraine has every right to defend itself from the aggressor, regardless of the distance.
The Netherlands has continued to provide significant military aid to Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. The list of transferred equipment includes 45 T-72 tanks, 196 armored YPR tracked vehicles, Fennek reconnaissance vehicles, Viking tracked vehicles, 8 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers, 120-mm mortars, as well as two Patriot air defense missile launchers. In addition, Ukraine received 100 MR-2 mobile anti-aircraft gun systems, missiles and air defense systems, including Stinger systems.
