NATO allies are ready to fund military aid for Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43.05 billion) next year, a Western European diplomat said, one week before the alliance’s leaders are set to meet in Washington.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had asked member states to keep up military aid for Ukraine at the same level as in the years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, adding up to some 40 billion euros ($43 billion) per year.
NATO leaders will sign off on the pledge next week in Washington. ‘Member states will aim to meet this pledge through proportionate contributions’, the agreement said. The financial pledge is part of a broader Ukraine package that NATO leaders will agree when they gather for the Washington summit from July 9 to 11.
In June, allies decided that NATO would assume a greater role in co-ordinating arms supplies to Ukraine, taking over from the United States in a bid to safeguard the process as NATO-sceptic Donald Trump seeks a second term as U.S. president.
After Russia’s invasion in 2022, the United States gathered like-minded nations at the Ramstein air base in Germany, forming a group of nations that now numbers about 50, which meets regularly to match Kyiv’s arms requests with pledges of donors.
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