NATO Defense Ministers Discuss Ukraine’s Security Aid And Training Plan

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense ministers convened on Thursday intending to reach a consensus on a revised plan to offer Ukraine military training and long-term security assistance, following Hungary’s pledge to abstain from vetoing the proposal as long as it is not coerced into participating.

The final round of high-level negotiations before US President Joe Biden’s conference in Washington on July 9–11, where the heads of the military organization are anticipated to announce financial support for Ukraine, is taking place over two days at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

As Russian forces strike along the 1,000-kilometer front line, taking advantage of a protracted delay in US military assistance, Ukraine’s Western allies are attempting to increase their military support.

Political infighting has also delayed the delivery of EU funds. Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO and chairman of Thursday’s meeting, stated that longer-term certainty on the types of weapons, ammunition, and funding that Ukraine’s armed forces may anticipate receiving is necessary. “The goal is to reduce the possibility of delays and gaps, as we observed earlier this year,” he stated to reporters.

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He claimed that “part of the reasons the Russians are now able to push and to occupy more land in Ukraine” is the hold-up.

To gather arms and ammunition for Kyiv, the Western allies of Ukraine have been meeting regularly as part of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which is overseen by the Pentagon, since the invasion by Russia in February 2022.

On Thursday, a new meeting took place at NATO headquarters. Even though the discussions produced a great deal of combat support, they were haphazard and unpredictable.

Mr. Stoltenberg is leading an initiative to get NATO to pick up some of the slack. The intention is for the 32-nation military alliance to coordinate the process of training and security support, in part by utilizing the command structure of NATO and allocating cash from its shared budget.

According to Mr. Stoltenberg, he is hoping that Mr. Biden and his counterparts in Washington will decide to keep paying Ukraine’s military at the same level that it has since the start of the conflict. He calculates that the annual equipment value is approximately $40 billion. Hungary declared on Wednesday that it would not exercise its veto power over the plan if it was not required to participate. According to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary: “I asked the Secretary-General to make it clear that all military action outside Nato territory can only be voluntary, according to Nato rules and our traditions. Hungary has received the guarantees we need.”

The largest security alliance in the world does not, as a group, send weapons or ammunition to Ukraine and does not have any plans to station troops there. However, many of its members do assist on a bilateral basis, accounting for over 90% of the nation’s military support.

Although the majority of the other 31 allies, including Mr. Biden, have been incredibly cautious to ensure that NATO is not drawn into a wider battle with Russia, they still view Russia’s attack on Ukraine as an existential security danger to Europe. NATO functions under the tenet that all of its allies will retaliate against any attack on one of them.