Summary of the day
Nato foreign ministers met in Brussels.
Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-general, announced that when it comes to the future of aid to Ukraine, “today, allies have agreed to move forward with planning for a greater Nato role in coordinating security assistance and training.”
Asked about a possible €100bn Nato fund for Ukraine, the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, told reporters: “we support the secretary-general’s efforts.”
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said “it is essential that we pour the ad-hoc structures into reliable, long-term structures.”
The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, urged allies to boost defence spending. “The most important thing we can do to make sure this alliance continues to grow and continues to strengthen is to ensure that we all spend over 2% of our GDP on defence,” he said.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reiterated his call for more air defences. “This terror is wreaking havoc on cities and villages throughout Ukraine, and Russia is particularly relentless in bombarding frontline and border areas,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s partners are not providing Ukraine with enough air defence, the country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told Reuters in an interview.
Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev said today, without providing any evidence, that “Ukrainian special services” were behind last month’s deadly concert shooting near Moscow.
Two Russian TU-95MS strategic bomber planes performed a scheduled five-hour flight over neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian seas.
Asked about concerns raised by Hungary, Jens Stoltenberg insisted that the alliance will remain defensive in nature and noted that he has spoken with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, twice in the last week.
Updated
