Australia and New Zealand to contribute to PURL
A tiny piece of good news I have learnt
After 12 months of offering Kyiv nothing in the way of military support, the Australian Labor government will finally offer Ukraine, battling for its very survival, a little bit more help.
As I reported in The Nightly, sources in Brussels, Canberra and Wellington tell me that Australia and New Zealand are about to become the first non-NATO countries to contribute to PURL.
PURL is NATO and Ukraine’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List scheme. It is the program created after the Trump Administration ended Joe Biden’s policy of directly sending weapons to Ukraine. Under US President Donald Trump, NATO countries are allowed to instead buy weapons from the US that can then be sent to Ukraine.
PURL is a far better iteration of the way the West supplies arms to Ukraine, as it allows the Ukrainians to seek the weapons they need, rather than try their best with a petting zoo of assorted platforms and sometimes even outdated equipment that countries have merely sought to offload and badge as a do-good exercise.
Ukraine’s priority needs are US-made air defence systems and longer-range missiles so it can strike Russian drone factories and oil refineries.
Since the program’s launch, the volume of financial support has exceeded $4.59 billion, from nearly 20 countries.
Two more nations are about to join the club, and crucially, they come from non-NATO countries.
My sources say that Australia is expected to contribute around $50 million, and New Zealand is likely to add a further $15 million. The combined $65 million could be pooled with funds from another country or a mixture of European countries, possibly Canada, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.
New Zealand’s Defence Minister Judith Collins, who was in Kyiv in September, told me:
‘New Zealand stands by our decision to support Ukraine in the defence of its land, people and culture from Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion.’
‘Having visited Ukraine, I was immensely impressed by the solidarity and stoicism of the Ukrainian people,’ Collins said.
‘As a member of the IP4, New Zealand’s commitment will continue.’
The IP4 refers to the Indo-Pacific Four countries, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, whose leaders are regularly invited to annual NATO summits, a signal of the trans-Atlantic Alliance’s growing focus on the threat posed by China’s increasingly aggressive rise.
Bryce Wakefield, a dual Kiwi-Australian who leads the Australian Institute of International Affairs, is one of the few Australian think-tankers to have visited Ukraine in wartime.
He said it was a rare example of the Indo-Pacific 4 partnership producing a meaningful result.
‘The IP4 has sometimes struggled to define its purpose, and from time to time has looked like a formation created by NATO and projected onto our region,’ he said.
‘This is a case where IP4 partners and NATO are doing something concrete, and it will make a difference.’
Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles, who has attended NATO the last two times because Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is not interested in attending, told Question Time this week that he was about to announce Australia’s next round of support for Ukraine.
‘Right now, we must stay the course with Ukraine,’ Marles told the House of Representatives.
‘Since the beginning of this conflict, we have provided $1.5 billion of support to Ukraine, and I can announce that very shortly we will be announcing our next package of support for Ukraine.
‘What is at stake here is the global rules-based order. There are not many orders; there is one, and it is as relevant to us here in the Indo-Pacific as it is to those who are in Eastern Europe.
‘Over the course of the last four years, the people of Ukraine have been absolutely inspirational, and the Albanese Labor government and the Australian people will stand by their side for as long as it takes.’
In truth, the Australian government, led by Anthony Albanese, has taken an odd position on Ukraine. It bleats the rote ‘stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,’ but its record in matching its words is mixed, to put it politely.
This contributed to an awkward snub at last week’s G20 when the European Union forgot to invite the Australian leader to their pow-wow on how to deal with the Russian-proposed ‘peace plan’ endorsed by the Trump Administration, that, if adopted, would lead to Ukraine’s capitulation.
Mr Albanese was in Johannesburg and had met the European Union’s President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa for bilateral talks. But the impression left by Australia’s actual commitments on Ukraine and broader Europe policy, versus its stated stance, contributed to President Costa overlooking the Australians (and Turks) at their leader’s sideline meeting.
The leaders issued a statement pushing back against the Russian-authored ‘peace plan’ that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff proposed, and leaked telephone intercepts to Bloomberg show that he coached the Russians on how to get it past the President.
Poland, whose leader, Donald Tusk, was not at the side meeting, signed the statement. Mr Albanese was invited to contribute Australia’s signature afterwards, but declined.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: ‘Australia was not invited to be part of this meeting, but we support the sentiments expressed in the statement.’
The snub, officially explained as a European + G7 meeting, was a mistake by the Europeans — Australia has signed up to the Coalition of the Willing, the potential peacekeeping force that the US and France are leading to deploy in the event of any ceasefire that the Trump Administration brokers between Russia and Ukraine and should be included in Western shows of support.
Part of the reason for the oversight is that the meeting was organised by Costa and not von der Leyen, with whom Albanese has more contact.
But this is only part of the explanation. Albanese has left Kyiv and Brussels deeply unimpressed by his go-slow approach to Ukraine.
For example, it took the government nearly three years to reopen the Embassy in Kyiv, more than two and a half years, after allies, including Canada, with whom Australia shared its diplomatic premises, returned.
And after coming to power in 2022, the government announced military aid to Ukraine at a tempo that was initially slower than the previous government and of lower quality. Over time and after substantial pressure, it improved Australia’s support, but there has been no new military aid announced for a year.
The Government has made just three visits since the start of the full-scale invasion, and on one, Marles made it only so far as across the Polish border to Lviv in the relatively safer part of Western Ukraine. Collins went to Kyiv two months ago, a city under constant missile and drone attacks from the Russians.
Albanese is also one of the few allied leaders to have still not signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine has signed agreements with some 28 other nations. This is why his double boycott of NATO has not gone unnoticed.
The redeeming factor in Australia’s policy on Ukraine under Labor was Albanese’s quick decision to join the French-British-led proposal for a potential Coalition of the Willing, but this has been the aberration in his Europe policy when it comes to security and Ukraine, rather than the standard.
It is a peculiar stance for a leader who is primarily motivated by raw domestic electoral politics because three-quarters of Australians support assisting Ukraine, including militarily.
So the belated shift to PURL is a good start. Ideally, it becomes the established mechanism for delivering Australian support to Ukraine.
But $50 million is a relatively small amount and only a fraction of the estimated $2 billion that the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) calculates Australia has reaped through accepting Russian-linked oil into its domestic fuel supply.
This Sunday, the Proteus Bohemia tanker will arrive at Port Botany, Sydney, carrying 78,000 tonnes of petrol on board. The fuel was refined at India’s Jamnagar refinery, which sourced 55 per cent of its crude oil from Russia in early 2025.
According to calculations by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, this tanker presents the Australian government with another $16 million it could easily divert to PURL, to show that it truly stands with Ukraine, not just for how long it takes, but with what it takes.
This article draws on my reporting for The Nightly, which I encourage you to read here.