NATO has launched an ad hoc mission to officially coordinate the shipment of weapons to Ukraine for the first time and the training of Kiev soldiers engaged in the war against Russia. This is the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, the Nsatu, approved in Brussels by the defense ministers of the Atlantic Alliance and which will be formally inaugurated at the NATO leaders’ summit in July in Washington.
Its task will be the one that until now was carried out informally by the United States under the supervision of the ‘Ukraine Defense Contact Group’. “We have agreed on a plan that sets out how NATO will lead the coordination of security assistance and training,” Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference.
The Nsatu headquarters will be in Wiesbaden, in western Germany, where among other things the United States Army military base that coordinates the activities of the American military in Europe is located. The Nsatu “will consist of a NATO command located at a US facility in Wiesbaden and at logistics hubs in the eastern part of the Atlantic Alliance, under the command of a three-star general who will report directly to the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe” ‘, Stoltenberg added. It is expected, he explained, that ‘nearly 700 personnel from NATO and partner countries will be involved’.
NATO, added its Secretary General, ”will supervise the training of the Ukrainian armed forces at training facilities in allied countries, support Ukraine through planning and coordination of donations, manage the transfer and repair of equipment , will provide support for the long-term development of the Ukrainian armed forces”. Meeting in Brussels, NATO defense ministers ”also discussed the need to strengthen Kiev’s military deterrence and defense industries” by providing “sustainable demand “.
Stoltenberg wants 40 billion a year for Ukraine, Italy says no
NATO set, well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the goal that member states spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. At the NATO summit to be held in Washington in July, Stoltenberg wants the countries of the Atlantic Alliance to agree on a plan to maintain in the long term their current level of support for Ukraine, which is 40 billion euros per month. year (43 billion dollars).
The burden would be divided based on the GDP of the various NATO countries, with the United States contributing 50%. The current agreement on NSATU does not provide specific financial commitments, but establishes that joint aid will at least be coordinated by NATO.
Italy, through the mouth of Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, opposed the allocation of 40 billion per year, despite continuing to send military aid and preparing the ninth package for Kiev. The minister pointed out that already today, with the new stability pact, it is “problematic” for our country to respect the target of 2% of GDP allocated to defence, which it should have reached this year, based on the commitments made in the 2014.
“We cannot add other ambitious objectives, also because I am not in the habit of making commitments that I then know I cannot respect”, added Crosetto, noting, not for the first time, that it would be appropriate to coordinate NATO policies with those which are decided at EU level, where the reform of the stability pact proposed by the Commission has been significantly tightened by Germany’s will.
