European NATO states to continue arming Ukraine

Western European leaders intend to send more military aid to Kiev and keep the NATO door open

FILE PHOTO: The NATO flag surrounded by member state flags, NATO headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, April 27, 2023. © Getty Images / Omar Havana

RT reports: Western European leaders have issued a statement backing US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic push to end the Ukraine conflict – while also reaffirming their intention to further arm Kiev and seek to bring it into NATO, the very issues Russia has cited as among the root causes of the conflict.

The declaration follows the summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, where the two disc
ussed steps toward ending the Ukraine conflict. Although no deal was announced, both sides characterized the talks as highly productive. Trump said he would speak with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Washington on Monday.

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Poland, Finland, as well as the presidents of the EU Council and European Commission, praised the peace efforts in a statement published on Saturday, but vowed to continue providing military aid to Kiev.

“Our support to Ukraine will continue. We are determined to do more to keep Ukraine strong in order to achieve an end to the fighting,” they said.

The statement rejects any notion of a territorial compromise, stressing that it was “up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory.” Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of a “land swap” between Russia and Ukraine as part of a deal.

The European leaders added that they were ready to provide Kiev security guarantees via a so-called “coalition of the willing” – a France- and UK-led effort to deploy a NATO “reassurance force” in Ukraine, an initiative that Moscow has staunchly opposed.

“No limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to EU and NATO,” the statement says.

Just a day earlier, Trump ruled out Kiev’s membership in the US-led military bloc.

Security guarantees for Ukraine will not come “in the form of NATO, because you know there are certain things that aren’t going to happen,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.

Moscow has long insisted that Ukraine must commit to neutrality, stay out of NATO, undergo demilitarization and denazification, and recognize the status of the new Russian regions.