NATO Secretary General: member countries to consider forming NATO—Ukraine Council, grant Kyiv equal participation opportunity

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, has stated at a press conference in the Brussels HQ that NATO member states would discuss the creation of a NATO—Ukraine Council on 15 and 16 June, according to Novaya—Europe’s newsperson.

All 31 NATO member states and Ukraine as a full—fledged participant will be able to take part in the Council, Stoltenberg noted.

A NATO—Ukraine Commission is active as of now. Stoltenberg has stated that these two cooperation formats are “significantly different” on organisational level.

he said.

Stoltenberg said he expected that allies would agree on a multi-year programme for Ukraine to make a transition from Soviet standards to NATO standards. 

“There are also individual NATO allies which are discussing bilateral arrangements with Ukraine that will underpin the same goal — different types of security reassurance and framework that insure that Ukraine for a long term will receive the weapons they need to defend themselves. And all this, of course, with the clear aim to prevent that when this war ends, Russia rests, reallocates and attacks Ukraine again.”

In his speech, Stoltenberg noted he was certain that the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive may push Vladimir Putin to peace negotiations. Stoltenberg ensured that training for Ukrainian pilots would allow the latter to use F-16 fighter jets and may start as early as this summer.

The meeting of NATO defence ministers, taking place on June 15 and 16 in Brussels, will begin on Thursday with a meeting of the NATO—Ukraine commission. It will be attended by the Ukrainian delegation, led by Defence Ministry Oleksiy Reznikov.

The New York Times cited unnamed Western officials on Wednesday who said there was no consensus among the allies on how to “bolster the commitment” to Ukraine ahead of the annual alliance summit, scheduled to take place in Vilnius in July.

At a meeting between Secretary General of NATO and US President Joe Biden, “Mr. Stoltenberg was bringing a compromise proposal to Mr. Biden, in which NATO would agree that Ukraine, battle-tested with NATO equipment and training, would not need to go through the standard process for aspiring members before it can join, according to a senior US official,” reads the article by The New York Times.

Other officials said that would raise questions about what would replace that process, including obtaining assurances that Ukraine, “which has a history of corruption and is under wartime martial law, does not turn authoritarian”.