Ukraine urgently needs more air defence systems, and NATO allies are working on this urgent problem; there has already been some progress.
Ukraine urgently needs new air defence systems — Stoltenberg
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg again raised the issue of providing Ukraine with additional air defence systems.
He stated this before the Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union meeting in the format of defence ministers in Brussels.
The most urgent need is strengthening air defence (Ukraine — ed.). We are working with NATO member countries, many of which are also EU members, to increase supplies of ammunition and air defence systems, including the most advanced Patriot systems. So we are seeing some progress. But Ukraine urgently needs more progress and more air defence systems. And this is also a message from the Ukraine-NATO Council, which is sitting in NATO today.
Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General of NATO
He added that the Alliance is now also working on coordinating the provision of equipment to Ukraine and training Ukrainian service members.
We have received a proposal from our Supreme Allied Commander NATO, SACEUR, on how to organize this. Thus, NATO coordinates the provision of military equipment and training to Ukraine.
Also, according to Stoltenberg, the meeting in Brussels will discuss his proposal for multi-year financial commitments for long-term support to Ukraine - "to prevent gaps and delays that we have seen recently, and for Ukraine to receive predictable, accountable support in the long term."
We are also working with industry to scale up production. Recently, we have seen several important decisions to increase investment, increase production. But we need more, and we are working closely with the Transatlantic Defence Industrial Base to ramp up production.
The Ukraine-NATO Council will also meet on May 28 at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance in Brussels. As part of the event, Jens Stoltenberg will have a separate meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olga Stefanishyna.
NATO plans to create a separate department for military aid to Ukraine
According to the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, during the summit in Washington on July 9-11, it will be agreed to create an agency responsible for organising arms supplies to Ukraine and their financing.
I proposed that at the summit in Washington we agree on the great role of NATO in coordinating and ensuring the security of Ukraine. I hope that we will be able to agree on a permanent structure for the organization of a stable supply of weapons to Ukraine, - emphasized the Secretary General of the Alliance.
He also noted that the attack by the criminal army of the Russian Federation on the "Epicentr" hypermarket in Kharkiv is a vivid example of Russia's cynical killing of the civilian population of Ukraine.
We saw a terrible attack on a hypermarket in Kharkiv this weekend, many civilians were killed, many were injured. This is another example of how brutal this war is. It must end, and Russia must stop attacking a sovereign country, the NATO leader emphasised.
