NATO Chief Wants Allies to Pledge Half-Billion Yearly To Ukraine
Just like the lyrics to the hit theme song in The Greatest Showman, when it comes to funding the Zelensky government "it will never be enough"... NATO leadership is now pitching the idea of member nations pitching into a permanent slush fund for long-term Ukraine support.
Bloomberg reports Monday that "NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is pressing allies to pitch in a total of €500 million ($543 million) a year to help Ukraine with non-lethal aid and other long-term support, according to people familiar with the matter."
And that's on top of the billions in defense aid already flowing in to Kiev.
According to more, "The head of the military alliance wants allies to boost contributions to a fund for NATO’s comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine, which includes short-term aid like fuel, protective equipment and anti-drone systems used to counter Russia’s invasion, said the people who asked not to be named on a confidential issue."
Washington will without doubt be supportive of such a plan, also given it already shoulders by far the largest burden when it comes to support for the war effort. It's possible the idea could have even originated from Washington.
Meanwhile Estonia too is speaking out on the issue of Ukraine support, bitterly complaining that many of the Western allies are falling behind:
Ukraine’s allies should raise their annual defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product as Russia’s war in Ukraine has stoked fears of its future intentions, a top official in Estonia said.
While Estonia’s government recently agreed a 3% floor, most of NATO’s members have failed to meet a 2% threshold set in 2006. Under the Estonian proposal, a quarter of spending would also go to acquiring new military capabilities, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said ahead of a meeting with allied foreign ministers set to start in Brussels on Tuesday.
This follows a stern message NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered last month. He urged member nations to boost their collective defense spending after an annual report issued by the alliance found that merely seven out of 30 member states fulfilled the 2% spending requirement last year. NATO had projected that nine would reach the spending goal in 2022, but the report confirms the alliance fell short.
As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reported previously, even before war on the European continent became a reality again in 2022, tensions had been running high about the state of NATO's military infrastructure as most European nations had adopted a lackluster approach to defense spending in peace times.
U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 brought the issue to the forefront once more as he criticized a number of NATO member states, especially Germany, for not meeting the 2-percent-of-GDP spending threshold agreed upon at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales.
Since then, a number of NATO members have upped their defense spending.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Larger and wealthier NATO members stayed behind the goal in 2022 - often by a large margin. This includes Germany, Canada, Italy and Spain.
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