More than two years after the war broke out in Ukraine, NATO has surrendered to the need to rely on long-term aid tools to avoid the impact that political ups and downs may have on member countries. Especially the fear of a return of Donald Trump to the White House. Foreign ministers yesterday gave their first approval to a plan for the Alliance to better coordinate with Kyiv, train its soldiers and launch a $100 billion fund.
With the conflict at a very difficult point for the Ukrainians, aid from the United States Congress paralyzed, and fear of Trump’s return, NATO aims to shield support for Kyiv. Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general, assured that “all allies agreed to advance a plan for NATO to have a greater role in coordinating security assistance and training” for Ukraine.
The plan includes creating a $100 billion fund for Ukraine over five years, several ministers confirmed during yesterday’s meeting. This would prevent Kyiv from being constantly subject to vetoes and political strategies. Still, Stoltenberg avoided giving details, but confirmed that the plans have been discussed with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky and Defense Minister Dimitro Kuleba.
It is, Stoltenberg explained, about giving more security and confidence to Ukraine in the aid, and although Stoltenberg refused to link it to a change in the presidency of the United States, the truth is that Trump has made it clear that he will block any future aid to Kyiv in case to win the presidential elections.
Currently, the coordination of military support for Ukraine is centralized by the United States, and forty countries participate, including the 32 members of NATO. They do this through the so-called “Rammstein Format”, a forum in which Ukraine expresses its needs for weapons and supplies.
At the meeting there was no discussion of how this fund was going to be allocated. Belgian Minister Hadja Lahbib stated that aid to Ukraine “is not about charity,” but about “security” for the entire Alliance. However, she warned that “it is dangerous to make promises that we cannot keep.” It would not be the first time it happens. European countries pledged to send one million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. They failed, although the Czech Republic is now leading a plan to achieve it.
The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, did not reject the proposal and considered it positive that there was greater “predictability” for Ukraine, but warned that “duplications” should not be created with the efforts already made by the European Union. “We must not duplicate from NATO what can be done better together in the EU. They are different organizations, with different purposes, but we have to make that reflection,” he noted.
Latvia and Poland, two countries very close to Kyiv, and Canada supported the plan. The Latvian minister, Krisjanis Karins, advanced that one of the possibilities to endow the fund is for each country to endow a proportional part of its GDP (Riga contributes the equivalent of 0.25% of this indicator). Estonia calculates that if each ally did the same, Ukraine could count on 120 billion euros annually. Money that, according to his calculations, would be “enough for Ukraine to win the war.”
Stoltenberg is confident that the new plans that have now begun to be discussed can be approved in time for the Alliance summit in Washington next July.
