German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said she supports the call by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius for a significant increase in aid to Ukraine this year.
"I am in complete agreement with the minister of defence. And not only with him, but also with the minister of the interior," Baerbock told the Bild newspaper and other Axel Springer media on Tuesday evening, adding: "We need a security budget."
Sunday's edition of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported that Pistorius was planning an additional requirement of €3.8 billion ($4.13 billion) for military support for Ukraine for the current year.
According to the report, the German government has allocated €7.1 billion for military aid to Ukraine so far this year.
However, the sum has been almost completely earmarked, with only €300 million still outstanding for new ammunition and weapons purchases, the newspaper reported, citing government sources.
Baerbock justified her demand with the fact that "we have never experienced our European order of peace, our European continent, being challenged this way, right on our doorstep."
"And in such an exceptional situation, I believe that the exception must also be reflected accordingly in a budget," Baerbock added. This requires "a lot, a lot of money."
No one in the future could justify saying that "we were not prepared to spend billions more on peace at the time. And it then led to this Russian war of aggression spreading further into Europe," warned Baerbock.
Baerbock on Tuesday made a plea for more international support to protect Ukraine's skies from Russian airstrikes as she visited Kiev.