Allies Consider Transferring Ukraine Weapons Group to NATO
An American-led multinational organization that coordinates the shipment of arms to Ukraine could move to the control of NATO to make it easier for the flow of weapons to Kyiv if Donald Trump becomes president, Politico reported on Tuesday.
Very senior officials in Brussels during the NATO foreign ministerial meeting on Wednesday and Thursday are expected to discuss a gradual transfer of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group into the control of the alliance so that the move could be finalized at the NATO leaders’ summit in Washington in July, according to a U.S. official.
This is seen as a way to give other countries in NATO a much more significant role in the process in case Trump is elected president again.
However, Defense Department spokesperson Maj. Charlie Dietz declined to confirm the talks, saying that DOD had “no new announcements to make regarding the format or structure” of the group and that “we are constantly discussing how we can ensure that our support for Ukraine is sustained and how we can organize the support in the best possible way.”
The Ukraine group, which began in the early weeks of the war two years ago, has sped up tens of billions of dollars in critical equipment, weapons, and other aid to combat invading Russian forces.
“There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump re-election,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official. “And that’s something that the U.S. is going to have to get used to hearing, because that is a fear, and a legitimate one.”
Townsend added that “pulling this under NATO kind of isolates it from a Trump presidency, or even from a U.S. that might get distracted by China and can’t keep it going or can’t get their own funding act together.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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