NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on the member states of the Alliance to start providing direct military aid to Ukraine instead of allocating 2% of GDP for their own defense.
Stoltenberg calls on NATO countries to provide direct military support to Ukraine.
In particular, the Secretary General of the Alliance noted Denmark and the Netherlands' decision to allocate additional aid to Ukraine and the Czech Republic's initiative to purchase artillery ammunition for Kyiv.
But Ukraine needs more. Therefore, if allies are faced with a choice between meeting NATO's defense spending goals and providing more aid to Ukraine, my signal is clear: send more to Ukraine, Stoltenberg emphasized.
He cited Denmark's decision to transfer all its artillery systems to Ukraine as an example.
At the same time, Stoltenberg noted that NATO member countries have a sufficient number of air defence systems that can be transferred to Ukraine to protect against air attacks by the criminal army of the Russian Federation.
I can't say the exact number because it's intelligence or classified information that I can't go into. There are less than 100 of them in Europe, said the NATO Secretary General.
According to him, NATO countries have sufficient Patriot air defence systems. Still, the United States, which has the most significant number of these systems and is an ally of Ukraine, bears global responsibility.
But the reality is that, of course, we have systems that are large enough that we can supply much more to Ukraine when it comes to air defence in general, particularly the Patriot batteries. And this is exactly what we are working on now, Stoltenberg stressed.
What is known about the meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council
The head of the Alliance announced that the Ukraine-NATO Council will be held next Friday, April 19.
It is known that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also be attending the meeting.
First of all, President Zelenskyy asked to hold a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council. We will convene a meeting on Friday. It will be a meeting with President Zelenskyy, and then with the ministers of defense to discuss the urgent needs for greater support for Ukraine, Stoltenberg explained.
He noted that he expects the following issues to be discussed during the meeting:
