New NATO center to help Ukraine behind schedule - Bloomberg
Photo: NATO is delaying the creation of a new NATO center to help Ukraine (Getty Images)
The new NATO command center to coordinate training and security assistance to Ukraine is behind schedule, Bloomberg reports.
NATO's Security Assistance and Training Command for Ukraine was supposed to open in Wiesbaden, Germany, this fall with 700 staff. Instead, the center is still ramping up, with several hundred people on staff. Many positions still remain unfilled as countries are in no hurry to send promised staff, an anonymous source told the agency.
The creation of the center was one of the key commitments made by NATO members at the alliance's summit in July.
By establishing the center, NATO agreed to take a more active role in coordinating military assistance and training for Ukraine to make aid to Ukraine more predictable and to protect it from political changes in the United States amid fears that President-elect Donald Trump could withdraw US support.
Since 2022, military assistance to Ukraine has been coordinated by the US-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has regularly brought together more than 50 participating countries at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The United States said the contact group would continue to work in tandem with the new NATO command center.
In mid-October, two weeks after taking office, new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte traveled to Germany to visit the center.
A NATO spokesperson said that the command is still in the process of being formed, with personnel stationed both in Wiesbaden and in logistics centers in the eastern part of the alliance.
NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on December 3-4. The main item on the agenda will be Ukraine.
