NATO countries cannot agree on longer aid to Ukraine
NATO understands the need for constant military aid for Kiev next year, but it becomes unclear after that. Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg failed to persuade the alliance members to make long-term commitments for military aid to Ukraine beyond the next year. The 32 allies could only agree to provide support in the amount of at least 40 billion Euros within the next year, according to several delegations. A concrete agreement on who contributes how much could not be reached, according to reports. The NATO states thus only vaguely commit to the fact that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will play a role.
Stoltenberg had initially urged the allies to guarantee Ukraine long-term military aid in the amount of at least 40 billion Euros per year. This was also about showing Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would not win his aggression war against Ukraine, Stoltenberg stated at a meeting with the foreign ministers of the 32 members in Prague at the end of May. The 40 billion Euros would roughly correspond to the annual military support the allies have provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
Regarding how a fair burden sharing could be guaranteed, Stoltenberg mentioned at the time that one option could be to calculate the contribution of individual member states based on their GDP. Accordingly, the USA, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy would have to pay the largest share of the annual 40 billion Euros.
Stoltenberg's wish was that the members of the alliance would reach a common position on this issue before the Washington summit in the coming week. An agreement on a very ambitious pledge, however, had already been considered unlikely from the beginning - among other things, because countries like France and Italy have so far only contributed a relatively small percentage of their GDP for military aid to Ukraine.
Stoltenberg will step down in October after ten years at the helm of the military alliance. He will be succeeded by the former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The military aid discussion for Ukraine beyond the next year remained inconclusive within NATO, with Secretary-General Stoltenberg unable to secure long-term commitments. Despite Stoltenberg's initial call for at least 40 billion Euros of annual military aid to counter Putin's aggression in Ukraine, the allies could only agree on supporting Ukraine with at least 40 billion Euros within the year. The lack of a concrete distribution plan for this funding led to NATO members vaguely committing to using their respective GDPs as a factor in their contributions.
