NATO countries pledged today (Thursday) to strengthen their support for Ukrainian forces, focusing on the advanced air defense systems that are at the top of Kyiv’s wish list. This, in response to Russia’s attacks this week on civilian targets throughout Ukraine.
“We will stand by Ukraine as long as it takes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said today, while the defense ministers gathered for the second day of meetings at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. “And we will provide more air defense systems to Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg’s pledge echoed the resolve of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other officials who have expressed dismay at Russia’s airstrikes. Defense ministers are expected to discuss today NATO’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, including military aid, critical infrastructure protection and nuclear planning.
Germany is already sending four of its state-of-the-art IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine.
Yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country would supply radar and air defense systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. He did not specify which systems. This morning, Britain joined him and announced that it would send Ukraine anti-aircraft missiles of the AMRAAM type.
“Russia’s indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine require additional support for those seeking to defend their country,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement to the media. The AMRAAM missiles, Wallace said, will be used alongside US air defense systems known as NASAMS. US officials said earlier this week that two NASAMS systems were weeks away from arriving in Ukraine and efforts were underway to get them there faster.
The new equipment comes as NATO and other Ukraine-backing nations are alarmed and angered by Russia’s increasingly brutal tactics: A series of battlefield setbacks is undermining Russia’s stability, NATO officials and diplomats say, but there is no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to to withdraw, and Russia is taking steps to tighten its grip on the occupied territories it illegally annexed.
As its stock of precision munitions is running low, the Russian side has stepped up its attacks using Soviet-era munitions. A sign, perhaps, of things to come.
Yesterday, Austin convened the sixth meeting of the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine, a coalition of more than 50 countries that have pledged military support to the country. Austin criticized the “maliciousness and brutality” of Russia’s latest escalation and promised continued support: “We’re going to do everything we can, as fast as we can, to help Ukrainian forces get the capability they need to protect the Ukrainian people.”
But getting Ukraine the systems it needs – and making sure they are usable – is a complex task, senior US and NATO officials said. General Mark Miley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that providing air defense would be “technically quite complicated” and “take some time”.
NATO’s 30 allies were joined in Brussels this week by Sweden and Finland, who have applied to join the alliance and are participating for the first time as “invites”, giving them wider access to most NATO discussions.