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NATO examines ways to strengthen ties with Ukraine

2023-06-16 09:23:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

NATO defense ministers met on Thursday to discuss relations with Ukraine and how to proceed as Russia's war against the country hampers its aspirations to soon join the larger security alliance in the world.

The ministers are scheduled to attend an additional meeting at NATO headquarters, known as the US-led Ukraine Contact Group.

This forum is routinely attended by Ukraine's allies in an effort to secure military resources such as weapons and ammunition to help Kiev fight the Russian occupation.

The NATO meeting comes a month before US President Joe Biden and his counterparts gather for a summit in Lithuania, in a symbolic show of support for Ukraine.

They are expected to underline their determination to act if Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to expand the war to the West.

NATO agreed in 2008 that Ukraine would join the organization one day, but did not set a date for it to begin membership talks.

At the start of the war, Ukraine applied for "accelerated accession" to NATO on September 30. With the Crimean peninsula annexed and Russian troops and pro-Moscow separatists holding parts of the south and east, it is not clear what Ukraine's borders will look like in the future.

The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has said that there is no consensus for the country's membership while it is at war with Russia.

"We agree that the most urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as an independent sovereign nation, because if Ukraine does not prevail and can continue as a democratic state in Europe, there is no question of membership to discuss," he said, before the meeting. Stoltenberg said he expects the 31-nation alliance to "agree on a multi-year program where we help move Ukraine from the old standards, equipment, procedures, doctrines to NATO standards, and become fully interoperable with NATO".

NATO has no official presence in Ukraine and as an organization provides only non-lethal support to Kiev, although the allies individually supply weapons and ammunition./ Rel