NATO’s Secretary General now goes to great lengths to regret that Ukraine has not received the military support that the NATO countries had promised.
Monday 29 April at 14:25
Jens Stoltenberg is in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Monday, on a visit that has not been announced in advance.
At a press conference together with President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, Stoltenberg acknowledged that NATO countries have fallen short in their deliveries to Ukraine, and that it has given Russia a window to make progress on the battlefield.
– There have been serious delays, said Stoltenberg.
– For several months, the United States was unable to agree on the promised military support. And European member states have not been able to deliver what we have promised, he added.
Not too late
Stoltenberg said that this had come at a price for Ukraine:
– Fewer Russian missiles and drones have been shot down. And Ukraine has been unable to repel Russian advances. But it is not too late for Ukraine, he said.
Zelenskyj said that he had discussed the way up to the NATO summit in the US this summer with Stoltenberg.
He thanked Stoltenberg for his initiative to set up a fund to support Ukraine of 100 billion euros over five years.
But Stoltenberg could not promise that this fund will be fully in place by the time until the summit in July.
