WASHINGTON: NATO has agreed to launch a new program to provide reliable military aid and training to Ukraine and help it get ready to join the alliance.
The plan will supplement, but not replace, the two-year-old Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which was created by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after Russia launched its February 2022 invasion into Ukraine. That group, with more than 50 nations from Europe and around the world, coordinates the delivery of much-needed weapons and training to Ukraine.
But the failure of the US Congress to fund any weapons for months due to partisan gridlock late last year and early this year, as well as similar lags in European Union funds, underscored how vulnerable that effort was to the vagaries of politics.
And the delays allowed Russian troops to gain the advantage on the battlefield, and led to widespread complaints from Ukraine’s forces about lack of equipment and weapons.
Some officials have described the new NATO organization as a way to “Trump-proof” alliance support for Ukraine in case former President Donald Trump wins the November election. But that may be a reach.
Here’s what is planned and what it will and won’t do:
Ukraine Defense Contact Group
Over the past two years, the US-created group has evolved into a more sophisticated and organized effort that so far has pumped more than $100 billion in weapons, equipment and training into Ukraine.
The US alone has sent more than $53.6 billion in security aid, including about $25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, under which weapons are taken from Pentagon stocks and sent quickly to Ukraine. The US has provided more than $27 billion in longer-term funding for weapons contracts through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
The rest of the NATO members and other international partners have provided about $50 billion in weapons and security assistance, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an independent research organization based in Germany.
An international coordination center was set up at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, the US Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany, to identify Ukraine’s needs, and to locate equipment, weapons and spare parts in other countries that could fill those requirements. That group may eventually be absorbed into the new NATO organization.
And the contact group set up eight so-called capability coalitions headed by various countries to concentrate on specific military requirements: such as fighter aircraft, tanks, artillery, naval assets, air defense, de-mining, cyber and drones. Those are expected to continue.
The new NATO plan
Under the plan endorsed by NATO heads of state on Wednesday, the alliance will take on a broader role to coordinate training and equipment donations.
The effort will be based at the US Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany and is expected to be led by a US three-star general. There will be about 700 staff members, including some who will work at logistics nodes in eastern allied nations.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the new program would put support for Ukraine on a “firmer footing for years to come” but would avoid making the alliance a party to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
And NATO also is pledging to provide at least €40 billion ($43.3 billion) within the next year, and “to provide sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail,” while taking into account budgets and other agreements.
The new coordination effort is dubbed the NSATU — NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine — and it will oversee three main areas:
A way to help Ukraine join NATO
A critical component of the new NSATU is that it will help facilitate Ukraine’s effort to become a member of NATO.
Membership in the alliance requires that nations meet a litany of political, economic and security criteria. For example, Ukraine’s military forces will have to meet certain standards of conduct and training, and their weapons and equipment have to be interoperable with those of other allied nations.
The NSATU will help ensure that as time goes on the weapons and training for Ukraine fit what would be required for NATO membership.
In announcing the effort earlier this year, Stoltenberg said it would help to organize training for Ukrainian military personnel in NATO member countries, coordinate and plan donations of the equipment that Kyiv needs, and manage the transfer and repair of that military equipment.
But is it Trump-proof?
Likely not.
A key incentive for the broader NATO organization, according to some officials, is the worry that Trump could regain the presidency and scale back support for the alliance as well as help to Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Trump reiterated his threat that he will not defend NATO members that don’t meet defense spending targets. And he set off alarms in Europe by suggesting he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies he considered delinquent.
And the gap in US funding for Ukraine this year was the result of opposition from Republican allies of Trump in Congress who blocked the aid package for months.
While moving some assistance for Ukraine under the NATO umbrella provides greater consistency, any change in US administrations could trigger shifts in US policy. And that could include limits on spending to support Ukraine or any other diplomatic or military operations.
Participation in the Ukraine contact group, for example, could be upended, as well as any other Pentagon program.
NATO agrees to take on coordination of some Ukraine security support
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NATO agrees to take on coordination of some Ukraine security support
- The delays allowed Russian troops to gain the advantage on the battlefield
- Some officials have described the new NATO organization as a way to “Trump-proof” alliance support for Ukraine in case former President Donald Trump wins
Pakistan, India agree to withdraw troops by end May
More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict, which was sparked by an attack on tourists by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing -- a charge it denies.
The military confrontation involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges came to an abrupt end after US President Donald Trump announced a surprise ceasefire, which is still holding.
"Troops will be withdrawn to pre-conflict positions by the end of May," the senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The official said both countries agreed a phased withdrawal of the additional troops and weaponry deployed, mostly on the already heavily militarised de facto border in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control (LoC).
It comes after the Indian army last week said both sides agreed to take "immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas".
"All of these steps were initially planned to be completed within 10 days, but minor issues caused delays," the Pakistani official added.
Kashmir is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, which have fought several wars over Muslim majority region since their 1947 independence from British rule.
The latest conflict began on May 7 when India launched strikes against what it said were "terrorist camps" in Pakistan, triggering an immediate response from Islamabad.
WHO members adopt a ‘pandemic agreement’ born out of the disjointed global COVID response
GENEVA: The World Health Organization’s member countries on Tuesday approved an agreement to better prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics in the wake of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus.
Sustained applause echoed in a Geneva hall hosting the WHO’s annual assembly as the measure — debated and devised over three years — passed without opposition.
The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines. Up to 20 percent of such products would be given to the WHO to ensure poorer countries have some access to them when the next pandemic hits.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has touted the agreement as “historic” and a sign of multilateralism at a time when many countries are putting national interests ahead of shared values and cooperation.
Dr. Esperance Luvindao, Namibia’s health minister and the chair of a committee that paved the way for Tuesday’s adoption, said that the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted huge costs “on lives, livelihoods and economies.”
“We — as sovereign states — have resolved to join hands, as one world together, so we can protect our children, elders, frontline health workers and all others from the next pandemic,” Luvindao added. “It is our duty and responsibility to humanity.”
The treaty’s effectiveness will face doubts because the United States — which poured billions into speedy work by pharmaceutical companies to develop COVID-19 vaccines — is sitting out, and because countries face no penalties if they ignore it, a common issue in international law.
The US, traditionally the top donor to the UN health agency, was not part of the final stages of the agreement process after the Trump administration announced a US pullout from the WHO and funding to the agency in January.
Hungarian lawmakers approve bill to quit International Criminal Court
- The government announced the move after Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant
Hungary’s parliament approved a bill on Tuesday that will start the country’s year-long withdrawal process from the International Criminal Court, which Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government said has become “political.”
Orban’s government announced the move on April 3, shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary for a state visit in a rare trip abroad in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant. The ICC’s Presidency of the Assembly of State Parties expressed concern at the move.
The International Criminal Court was set up more than two decades ago to prosecute those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Orban last month said the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, a rule-of-law court, but rather a political court.”
Hungary has rejected the idea of arresting the Israeli prime minister and has called the warrant “brazen.”
Hungary is a founding member of the ICC and ratified its founding document in 2001. However, the law has not been promulgated.
The bill to withdraw from the ICC passed on Tuesday with 134 members voting in favor and 37 against.
“Hungary firmly rejects the use of international organizations — in particular criminal courts — as instruments of political influence,” the bill, submitted by Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen, said on parliament’s website.
Netanyahu called Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC a “bold and principled decision.”
The Israeli prime minister faces an ICC arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza as Israel expands its military operation in the Palestinian enclave. Netanyahu has denied the allegations.
A country’s withdrawal from the ICC comes into effect one year after the United Nations Secretary-General receives a written notification of the decision.
Cambodian students re-enact bloody Khmer Rouge crimes
PHNOM PENH: Cambodian students wearing all black and wielding bamboo clubs and wooden rifles staged a dramatic re-enactment on Tuesday of a genocide that killed two million people in the 1970s.
A quarter of Cambodia’s population died of starvation, forced labor or torture or were slaughtered in mass killings under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.
The Khmer Rouge atrocities are commemorated at museums and sites including Choeung Ek, a notorious former “Killing Field” in Phnom Penh, where an annual Day of Remembrance event is held.
Hundreds gathered at Choeung Ek, where about 15,000 people died between 1975 and 1979, holding prayers in front of a display of victims’ skulls.
Students brandishing mock weapons then acted out slitting victims’ throats, shooting or clubbing them in a re-enactment of Khmer Rouge attacks on civilians.
Some attendees cried at the confrontingly vivid re-enactment.
“My tears fell when I watched the performance,” attendee and survivor Chruok Sam, 70, told AFP.
He lost 12 family members under the Khmer Rouge and said the performance showed “exactly the same” as what he had experienced in 1975.
He hoped the re-enactment would help young generations learn more about what he called “the most heinous and cruel regime on Earth.”
Another survivor, 63-year-old Em Ry, said she was still scared and had never been able to forget Pol Pot’s time in power.
She was forced to work all day and only ate a “spoonful of corn,” she said, and lost several family members including her grandmother.
Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was at the opening of a new cement plant in central Kampong Speu province, urged people not to forget the past.
“We must move on, but we cannot forget our painful past,” he said.
Cambodia marked the 50th anniversary last month of the Khmer Rouge’s bloody march into Phnom Penh.
A special tribunal sponsored by the United Nations convicted three key Khmer Rouge figures before ceasing operations in 2022. Other former cadres still live freely.
Pol Pot, nicknamed “Brother Number One,” died in 1998 before he was brought to trial.
France ‘determined’ to recognize Palestinian state: foreign minister
PARIS: France is “determined” to recognize a Palestinian state, its foreign minister said on Tuesday, condemning Israel for the “indefensible” situation in Gaza created by its military campaign and humanitarian blockade.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also reaffirmed that Paris backed a Netherlands-led initiative for a review of the cooperation agreement between the European Union and Israel, which could affect political and economic ties.
President Emmanuel Macron has left open the possibility that France could become the latest European nation to recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference in June.
“We cannot leave the children of Gaza a legacy of violence and hatred. So all this must stop, and that’s why we are determined to recognize a Palestinian state,” Barrot told France Inter radio.
“And I am actively working toward this, because we want to contribute to a political solution in the interest of the Palestinians but also for the security of Israel,” he added.
Barrot was speaking after Macron joined British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in a rare joint statement that angered Israel.
The statement said that “we will not stand by,” threatened “further concrete actions” if Israel continued to block aid, and said that “We are committed to recognizing a Palestinian state.”
Pressed over what these actions could entail, Barrot again urged the EU to agree to the Dutch request to review the association agreement between Israel and the bloc and, in particular, examine if Israel was violating the accord’s commitments on human rights.
He said this raises “the possibility of an eventual suspension” of an accord, which has political as well as commercial dimensions.
“Neither Israel or the EU have an interest in ending that accord,” he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized a limited amount of humanitarian aid after more than two and a half months of a complete blockade of the Palestinian territory, which is facing a catastrophic humanitarian situation.
But Barrot said this was “totally insufficient.”
The situation in Gaza is “indefensible because blind violence and the blocking of humanitarian aid by the Israeli government have turned Gaza into a death trap if not a cemetery.”
In a warning to Israel, he added: “When you sow violence you harvest violence.”
The war was sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.
Gaza’s health ministry said Monday at least 3,340 people in the Palestinian territory have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,486.
