Secretary General: Ukraine's trust in NATO dented by failure to fulfill promises
Photo: Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
NATO countries have not fulfilled all of their promises to supply weapons to Ukraine. This situation has undermined Kyiv's confidence, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with Reuters.
The Secretary-General reminded that the United States had been unable to allocate new funding for several months to continue assistance to Ukraine because of disagreements in Congress. At the same time, European countries provided Ukrainian defenders with significantly fewer munitions than they had promised earlier.
According to Stoltenberg, these events led to Russia gaining the initiative, while Ukrainian defenders were forced onto the defensive.
"Of course, the fact that we have not delivered what we promised has put a dent ... into the trust," Stoltenberg said.
But, as Stoltenberg clarified, Kyiv continues to trust its allies, and now everything depends on them.
The Secretary General emphasized that against the backdrop of such failures in supplies, Western countries need to review the format of assistance to Ukraine.
"We need a more robust, institutionalized framework for our support to ensure predictability, to ensure more accountability and to ensure burden-sharing," said Stoltenberg.
NATO fund of 100 billion euros
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently proposed the idea of new assistance to Ukraine. He wants to create a €100 billion fund to provide defense support of Ukraine.
The Secretary General discussed this issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to Kyiv yesterday, April 29.
The President emphasized that it is important that the fund does not take into account the bilateral assistance to Ukraine which allies have already promised to provide.
