BRUSSELS: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has proposed creating a 100-billion-euro ($108-billion), five-year fund for Ukraine in a push to get the alliance more involved in sending weapons to Kyiv, officials said Tuesday.
NATO foreign ministers will hold preliminary talks on the plan in Brussels Wednesday as they seek to forge a support package for Ukraine by a July summit in Washington.
“Foreign ministers will discuss the best way to organize NATO’s support for Ukraine, to make it more powerful, predictable and enduring,” a NATO official said.
“No final decisions are to be taken at the April ministerial meetings, and discussions will continue as we approach the Washington summit in July.”
Officials and diplomats said the proposal was for NATO’s 32 countries to contribute to the fund according to the size of their economy.
But several cautioned that there remain major questions over how any financing would work and the plan would likely change markedly by the summit in Washington.
“There is still a long way to go — numerous allies have questions on practical arrangements,” a NATO diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The officials said Stoltenberg’s proposal also envisions NATO taking more control of coordinating arms supplies to Kyiv from a US-led grouping that currently helps oversee support.
Stoltenberg has argued this could help insulate the flow of weaponry to Ukraine from any political changes in NATO countries, with Donald Trump pushing to return to White House at November elections, officials said.
The move would mark a major shift for the Western military alliance which has so far refused as an organization to send weapons to Ukraine for fear it would drag NATO closer to a conflict with Russia.
Up until now NATO has only sent non-lethal aid to Ukraine, while its individual members have supplied weaponry worth tens of billions of dollars.
The proposal comes as Ukraine’s outgunned forces are struggling to hold back Russia in the face of dwindling supplies from Kyiv’s Western backers.
A $60-billion US funding package is currently stalled in Congress but there are hopes lawmakers could move to pass it in the coming weeks.
NATO foreign ministers are also expected to discuss the race to replace Stoltenberg after Romanian President Klaus Iohannis launched a surprise challenge against the frontrunner, Dutch premier Mark Rutte.
Diplomats said Rutte now has the support of some 90 percent of NATO countries, but Hungary and Turkiye remain holdouts blocking a swift nomination ahead of the summit.
NATO chief floats 100-billion-euro fund to arm Ukraine
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NATO chief floats 100-billion-euro fund to arm Ukraine
- NATO foreign ministers will hold preliminary talks on the plan in Brussels Wednesday
- They seek to forge a support package for Ukraine by a July summit in Washington
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
