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All NATO Allies Agree That Ukraine Should Join Alliance, NATO Head Says

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 - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 21.04.2023
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - All NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine should become a member of the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
"I said in Kiev [on Thursday] that Ukraine's future is in the Euro Atlantic family and all NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a NATO member," Stoltenberg said ahead of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
The NATO chief also said that the organization's allies have been discussing the delivery of different types of aircraft to Ukraine.

"On jets, well, allies have delivered, Poland has delivered MiG-29s. There's an ongoing discussion about other types of jets," Stoltenberg added.

Earlier in Kiev, Stoltenberg said, that Ukraine's security and its possible NATO membership were high on the agenda at the upcoming meeting in Germany and in the run-up to the Vilnius summit in July.

"I … recognized that President Zelensky would raise the issue of membership, of security guarantees and this will be high on the [Ukraine Defense Contact Group] meeting's agenda and also in the lead-up and the preparations for the Vilnius Summit," he told a press conference in Kiev.

Stoltenberg also remarked that NATO's priority was military assistance to Ukraine.

"The urgent need is military support to Ukraine… We discussed it today. We will discuss it in Ramstein, where we meet in the US-led contact group for Ukraine tomorrow, and every day in the lead-up to the Vilnius summit and also at the Vilnius Summit," he added.

Stoltenberg also said that allies were committed to delivering more jets, tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine. He estimated that NATO's military aid to Ukraine had topped $165Bln since February 2022.
During the visit, Stoltenberg reiterated that Ukraine's place was in NATO but gave no timeline for it to join. He said this would be made possible "over time" and assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the alliance was with Ukraine for the long term to help it transition to NATO standards and ensure its full interoperability with allies.
In September, Zelensky announced that Ukraine was applying for accelerated membership to NATO. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was closely monitoring the situation and recalled that Kiev's inclination to the alliance was one of the reasons for the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022.
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