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The defense ministers of the NATO will begin a two-day meeting on Thursday in Brussels in which they hope to approve a plan for the Alliance to coordinate international military aid to Ukrainewhich estimates that it should be at least 40 billion euros per year.
“Since Russia began full-scale invasion in 2022, our allies provided 40,000 million euros in military support for Ukraine each year. We must maintain this level of support at least and for as long as necessary“, indicated the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenbergat a press conference before the meeting.
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At this meeting, which will be preceded by a new meeting of the group of countries that support Ukraine and who presides U.S and a new session of NATO-Ukraine Council, Ministers hope to prepare decisions that will receive the green light from government leaders Alliance at its July summit in Washington.
“I hope ministers will approve a plan for the NATO lead the coordination of aid and safety training for Ukraine“, indicated the Norwegian politician, who added that it is”a key element” of the package that allies will agree on in Washington, “along with a long-term financial commitment” he added.
According to diplomatic sources, this plan includes an assessment of Ukrainian needs, the provision of lethal material and non-lethal, the articulation of a training system and, in the long term, the interoperability and standardization of the Ukrainian Army.
Sending soldiers to instruct soldiers on Ukrainian territory is not planned, they indicated something that allies like Spain consider a red line.
They also indicated that the negotiation of the financial commitment continues, which Stoltenberg proposed to promote in April and which then amounted to around 100 billion euros over several years.
Today he said the “ad hoc” voluntary contributions made by allies meant “a big difference”but that “the longer this war drags on, the more important it is that we have more predictability, more responsibility and also a fairer distribution of the burden”.
In practice, he indicated that they study that the so-called Ukraine Security Assistance Group (SAG-U), created by the United States and headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, to manage arms contributions and training initiatives for Kiev, will be led by U.S. General Christopher G. Cavoli in his role as supreme commander of the Alliance for the Europe (SACEUR).
Cavoli currently leads SAGObut in his role as commander of the USA in Europe; The change would imply, according to Stoltenbergwhat “There will be a joint effort from the allies of the NATO” in that job.
Likewise, he stated that the plan includes “use the command structure and the common financing of the NATO to organize and facilitate this homework.
Stoltenberg addressed these initiatives to support Ukraine today in Budapest with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbánwho assured that he will not participate in them, but he will not block them either.
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military industry
Defense ministers will also dedicate themselves at this meeting to advancing work on “a new commitment”to boost the defense industry, which will be approved by allied leaders at the summit of washingtonhe said Stoltenberg.
“This will allow us to increase the military production and send a long-term demand signal to the industry”, he commented.
He stated that the commitment is “The political document It is important that allies agree on how they should work together to strengthen the defense industry.”
“O NATO It has an important and fundamental role, partly to establish capacity objectives for what the allies have to produce, partly to decide how much we are going to invest (…), but the NATOOf course, it also plays a key role when it comes to establishing standards to ensure that weapons and ammunition are fully interoperable and comply with Alliance standards.“, He explained.
He added that, for the transatlantic organization, it is also important “ensure that barriers to trade are reduced and the acquisition of defense material.”
He added that contracts with the defense industry are increasing and detailed that U.S doubled production of 155mm ammunition, of which 14,000 projectiles per month in 28,000, and this will reach 100,000 per month “in the near future”.
“We see similar numbers for European allies”, he stated.
Defense ministers will also try “the Russian campaign of hostile acts in countries of NATO which intensifies”, according to Stoltenbergand spoke of sabotage, violent acts, cyber attacks and disinformation.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
