NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg told Ukrainians on Monday that members of his alliance had failed to fulfill their military aid pledges in recent months, but said the flow of weapons and ammunition would now increase.
In an unannounced visit to Ukraine, the Secretary General of the Transatlantic Military Alliance spoke with President Volodymyr Zelensky and was supposed to address the Ukrainian Parliament.
His visit – the third since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – comes at a difficult time on the battlefield for Ukraine. After a failed Ukrainian counter-offensive last year, Russian forces seized the initiative, at least in part due to a lack of weapons and ammunition from Kiev’s Western partners.
“I will also be very honest with President Zelensky, as well as with Rada, that the NATO allies have not fulfilled what they promised in recent months,” Stoltenberg said on Monday.
“The United States spent six months agreeing on the package, and the European allies did not deliver the ammunition they promised. Now, however, I am convinced that things will change,” he said.
Stoltenberg pointed to the US Congress now approving an aid package worth more than $60 billion to Ukraine, quickly signed by President Joe Biden, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement last week of a “record high” commitment to Kiev.
He also noted that Germany has agreed to provide the new Patriot air defense system to Ukraine, and the Netherlands has stepped up its aid to Kiev.
He said he expects other “new obligations”.
He said the Russians had paid a “high price for marginal territorial gains” and that Ukraine could still turn things around.
“It is not too late for Ukraine to prevail. But that is why it is so urgent that the NATO allies now really do what we promised and that we turn those commitments into real deliveries of weapons and ammunition, and I am convinced that this will happen now,” Stoltenberg said, according to ReutersReuters.
