NATO allies will consider the need to appoint a military bloc representative on Ukraine to coordinate support for Kiev within the alliance, US permanent representative to the organisation Julianne Smith said.
The US permanent representative to NATO spoke ahead of the upcoming 30-31 May informal ministerial meeting of the alliance members and said there is a possibility of appointing an alliance representative on Ukraine to coordinate support for Kiev.
“The third aspect will be to discuss whether there is a need to appoint some sort of representative to help manage the various efforts (to help Ukraine – ed.), within the NATO alliance,” Julianne Smith said at a briefing.
The Ukrainian issue will be the main topic of the upcoming meeting, she stressed.
In addition, the official noted that although at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington in July “an invitation (of Ukraine to the alliance – ed.) is unlikely,” the allies “are focused on providing support to help build a bridge to membership (in NATO – ed.).”
According to her, “the summit declaration will include language about Ukraine’s desired membership and will not look exactly like last year’s statement”.
We shall remind you that earlier Julianne Smith said that the USA and its allies were studying the possibility of strengthening the air defence of the territory of the North Atlantic alliance members, as well as the possibility of supplying air defence systems to Ukraine.
