BRUSSELS – Nato countries must boost their military aid to Ukraine, the head of the alliance urged on March 14, as Kyiv’s forces struggle to hold the line against a fresh Russian advance.
“The Ukrainians are not running out of courage. They are running out of ammunition,” Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels. “Together, we have the capacity to provide Ukraine with what it needs. Now, we need to show the political will to do so.”
“All allies need to dig deep and deliver quickly. Every day of delay has real consequences on the battlefield in Ukraine,” Mr Stoltenberg added, as he presented the alliance’s annual report.
He said two-thirds of member nations will meet the bloc’s overall spending target in 2024.
The authorities in Kyiv have been pressing for a steady supply of ammunition and other weapons to fend off the invaders.
Ukraine’s top diplomat said on March 13 that badly needed ammunition stocks being collected through a Czech-led initiative will begin arriving on the front line in the “foreseeable future”, rather than months.
Mr Stoltenberg’s remarks come after United States President Joe Biden slammed Donald Trump in February for suggesting he would allow Russia to attack members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) that underspent, calling the remarks “dangerous” and “un-American”.
The prospect of Trump’s return to the White House has triggered increased talk among allies about what Europe could do to ensure the US is invested in transatlantic security.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions apparent, European officials have started warning about the prospect of an attack on Nato within the next few years.
“This year, two-thirds of allies will meet the 2 per cent target, up from just three allies in 2014 when we agreed the defence investment pledge,” Mr Stoltenberg said, in a reference to Nato nations’ goal to spend 2 per cent of their budgets on the sector.
He said 2023 was the ninth consecutive year of increased defence investment across Europe and Canada, with spending rising by an unprecedented 11 per cent.
In 2024, Nato allies in Europe will invest a total US$470 billion (S$626 billion) in defence, “amounting to 2 per cent of their combined GDP for the first time”, Mr Stoltenberg said.
He said in February that a record 18 Nato countries out of the then 31 members were expected to meet the alliance’s defence spending goal in 2024. Sweden became the 32nd member earlier in March and Finland in 2023.
New countries to meet Nato’s target on defence spending in 2023 included Denmark and Hungary.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has called for Nato member states to raise the minimum level of defence spending to 3 per cent of economic output. Warsaw is seeking reinforcement of the alliance’s eastern flank in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Poland’s neighbour.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 prompted countries to start reversing a trend of scaled-back spending following the end of the Cold War. That drastically accelerated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most notably in Germany, which chronically underspent. BLOOMBERG
