"The question is when"

Secretary General: Ukraine to become a NATO member

NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg

(Bild: APA/AFP/Thomas COEX)

Ukraine will become a NATO member, as Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Wednesday. "The question is not if, but when", he said before a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. He also called on the allies to prepare for more and longer-term assistance for Ukraine.

This would involve long-term and predictable military aid. It is clear that more money is needed. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is said to have already made several proposals to help Ukraine. One of these is that a mission could coordinate the delivery of weapons and training activities for the Ukrainian armed forces. "For Europe to live in peace, Russian imperialism must be stopped," said the foreign ministers. Gray areas and concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin are "naive."

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"Collective defense"
 Before the announcement that Ukraine would become a NATO member, Annalena Baerbock (Germany), Stéphane Séjourné (France) and Radoslaw Sikorski (Poland) wrote: "The US has long taken on more of the burden than the rest of our alliance. But collective defense is our common effort." European defense must be strengthened. In the US election year, many NATO countries fear that the military superpower could turn away from the alliance under a possible election winner Donald Trump. The US government is currently in charge of coordinating arms deliveries.

Founded in 1949
The meeting began on Wednesday and is scheduled to run until Thursday. NATO was founded in Washington on April 4, 1949, in response to the policies of the communist Soviet Union, which were perceived as threatening (see video above). The organization currently has 32 European and North American member states and is headquartered in Brussels. Finland and Sweden recently joined.