NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană chaired a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council on Tuesday (28 May 2024), urging Allies to dig deeper into their stocks and deliver more military aid to Ukraine. Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, updated Allies on the situation on the battlefield and Ukraine's most urgent needs.
NATO Allies acknowledged the urgency of providing additional military support, and discussed plans to put support on a firmer and more enduring basis at the Washington Summit in July. Speaking at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Sofia on Monday, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: "I strongly believe that we need a firmer, stronger institutionalized structure for the support. Ad-hoc, short term, voluntary announcements are good, but in the long term, we need more predictable, stronger support for Ukraine." He added: "I hope that Allies can agree a multiyear financial pledge because the Ukrainians need more long-term knowledge, more predictability to plan and to invest, to ensure that they have the forces they need to defend against the Russian invaders, but also in the future to deter against future Russian aggression."
Mr Geoană commended Ukraine's work in implementing the requirements of the adapted Annual National Programme, and Kyiv's progress in pursuing reforms, saying that these will bring Ukraine closer to its future in NATO.
