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NATO is planning a major change in its support for Ukraine. According to VG, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is said to have said that NATO countries will have to collectively provide around NOK 450 billion in military support per year in the future.
Short version
- NATO plans to provide Ukraine with 450 billion Norwegian kroner in military support each year.
- Stoltenberg expects NATO to play a stronger coordinating role at the July summit.
- Some NATO countries have refused due to high debts and internal divisions.
- Ukraine has not yet received a direct invitation to join NATO.
and NATO– In July, heads of state and government met in Washington to discuss how Future aid to Ukraine Must be organized.
This spring, Russia took a Military advantage in some areas of the front.
Ukraine had to ration ammunition and air defense systems.
Stoltenberg admitted The promise of support has been broken.
– Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday in Bulgaria that when we meet in Washington, I expect we will agree that NATO should play a stronger role in coordinating support for Ukraine.
– It will be more responsible and more predictable. This will ensure a high degree of burden sharing among NATO countries, he added.
Support for Ukraine and the agenda for the NATO summit will be the subject of discussion when NATO foreign ministers meet in Prague on Thursday and Friday. Espen Barth Eide is from Norway.
Giver decides
In recent days, Stoltenberg has argued that Ukraine must be allowed to attack Russian military targets using weapons provided by NATO countries and The proposal was strongly opposed by President Putin.
VG has learned that NATO’s new coordination role will not change the rules that each contributing country can decide for itself whether its weapons can fire at targets inside Russia.
Huge summer
Internal NATO estimates suggest member states would have to spend around €40 billion (Norwegian kroner 450 billion) to maintain the level of military support for Ukraine seen over the past two years.
According to VG information, this is who Stoltenberg is targeting now. It applies not only to next year, but also as a multi-year commitment of the NATO country until the end of the Ukrainian war.
A source from the center said that how the bill will be divided and how much NATO countries will propose to contribute must be clarified before the July summit. VG learned that there is now real internal bargaining within NATO, both about structure and money.
NATO has a fixed key for burden sharing between large and small member states. Norway’s share is 1.73%.
Loans in Russian currency
But Hungary refused to participate in any joint venture in support of Ukraine, and Slovakia has been following suit. U.S. elected officials refused to support it for six months before a majority in Congress expressed support.
VG also realized that other NATO countries, which were heavily in debt, refused to send money to Ukraine using new government loans.
A possible solution is from G7 countries – the six largest NATO countries plus Japan – opened the door to loans to Ukraine using frozen Russian funds as collateral.
When NATO took over responsibility for coordinating aid to Ukraine from the United States, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg hoped that military assistance would be better coordinated to meet Ukraine’s needs.
NATO’s military chief, U.S. General Christopher G. Cavoli, recently proposed a plan to do just that.
“When the time is right”
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said Ukraine would not receive a direct invitation to join the defense alliance at the summit.
She told a news conference that member states were working on ideas to tie Ukraine more closely to NATO in a summit statement, but no details were available yet.
This is what NATO countries agreed to at the 2023 summit:
- Ukraine will receive an invitation from NATO when the time is right and all current NATO members agree.
- Ukraine has released a so-called “accession action plan,” a step-by-step path that other applicant countries must follow.
- NATO and Ukraine now meet regularly at the council, which was established following a decision at last year’s Vilnius summit.
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