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NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg will call on allies to pledge more winter aid to Kyiv at meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, after Ukraine’s president told residents it would be another cold and dark week because of Russian attacks on infrastructure .
A meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest will focus on increasing military aid to Ukraine, such as air defense systems and munitions, while non-lethal assistance was also discussed, although diplomats acknowledged supply and capability issues.
Some of this non-lethal assistance — cargo such as fuel, medical supplies, winter equipment and drone jammers — is already provided through NATO aid packages that allies can provide, and Stoltenberg wants to add to that.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned his fellow countrymen this week of a new Russian attack that could be as serious as last week and the worst yet, killing millions Cut off water, water or electricity.
Russia has admitted targeting Ukrainian infrastructure. It denies its intention to harm civilians.
“It’s going to be a terrible winter for Ukraine, so we’re trying to strengthen our support for it to be resilient,” a senior European diplomat said.
Germany, which chairs the G7, has also arranged for a meeting between the G7 and some partners on the sidelines of NATO talks to find ways to speed up the rebuilding of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
On the military front, NATO has been pushing arms makers to speed up production, but another diplomat warned of growing supply capacity problems.
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“We are doing our best to deliver, but there is a problem. The Ukrainians know this. Even the U.S. arms industry, despite its strength, has a problem,” the diplomat said.
Ministers will also discuss Ukraine’s application to join NATO. But they are likely to only confirm the alliance’s open-door policy, with the war-torn country’s membership in NATO seemingly nowhere in sight.
In 2008, a NATO summit in Bucharest’s parliament building under the dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, who was overthrown in 1989, agreed that Ukraine would eventually become a member of the alliance.
However, the leaders did not take any concrete steps, such as providing Kyiv with a membership action plan that would set out a timetable for bringing the country closer to NATO.
NATO ministers will also discuss how to strengthen the resilience of societies, days after Stoltenberg warned Western nations must be careful not to create new reliance on China as they wean themselves off Russian energy supplies.
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