The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, center, reiterated the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels on Thursday.Credit…Simon Wohlfahrt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Reinforcing the support for Ukraine that the Biden administration has expressed during the Group of 7 summit, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III pledged at a high-level gathering in Brussels on Thursday that Washington would keep supplying Ukrainian forces with military hardware to use against continued Russian assaults.
“As we gather this morning, Ukraine’s forces are in a tough fight,” Mr. Austin said at the event, a meeting at NATO headquarters of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 nations that have provided military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine during the war. “In Kharkiv and elsewhere, the Kremlin continues to intensify its bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and civilians, and Ukraine urgently needs more air-defense capabilities to defend its skies.”
The U.S. defense secretary said that Ukrainian forces were both fending off Russia’s assault around Kharkiv in northern Ukraine and “holding strong” along the country’s eastern and southern fronts — although Ukraine has struggled in recent months.
Representatives from more than 40 nations attended the meeting, including all 32 NATO member states, several of what the United States calls its “major non-NATO allies,” and European nations like Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina that hope to someday join NATO.
“We have a clear framework we are supporting with Ukraine,” Irakli Chikovani, Georgia’s defense minister, said in an interview before the meeting began. “This is a political and humanitarian framework. This is something that has been declared for many months — since the beginning of the war against Ukraine — and we’re going to stick to that plan.”
Kosovo, which the United States recognized as a sovereign nation in 2008 but that is not universally recognized by members of the United Nations, has also contributed material support to Ukraine as a member of the contact group. Kosovo has been modernizing its military to NATO standards — an expensive and time-consuming process that Ukraine itself is also working to do in the middle of fighting a war.
“We are very determined on the path to joining the alliance,” Ejup Maqedonci, Kosovo’s defense minister, said in an interview at NATO headquarters. “For defense equipment, we are procuring only from NATO countries, mostly from the U.S., the U.K., Turkey and Italy.”
The country has conducted two training sessions on demining for Ukrainian troops and recently provided Kyiv with mortar ammunition and tracks for armored vehicles, Mr. Maqedonci said.
“We procure for ourselves, but we see the war in Ukraine as our war also,” he said.
Mr. Austin announced that Argentina, also a major non-NATO ally of the United States, had joined the coalition and he welcomed the country’s defense minister, Luis Petri, to his first meeting of the group. Argentina committed last year to delivering two Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Mr. Austin said Russia had suffered “staggering losses” thus far in the war, including 350,000 soldiers killed or wounded, thousands of vehicles destroyed and at least 24 vessels sunk, destroyed or damaged in the Black Sea.
“This is a critical moment. The stakes of this war are high. Ukraine’s survival is on the line, but so is all of our security,” Mr. Austin said, adding, “Make no mistake, Ukraine’s partners around the world have its back.”
