Sec Gen Talks Up Multi-Year Funding Package For Ukraine

Delivering doorstep comments at the NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Brussels, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg seems to confirm earlier reporting (see 'Foreign Ministers Meet w/USD100bn Ukraine Fund Proposal On The Table', 0901BST) that NATO will seek to put together a significant joint fund to support Ukraine. States that minsiters are to 'discuss a multi-year financial commitment to sustain Ukraine and support NATO'. Adds that 'NATO need to shift the dynamics of Ukraine support to multi-year pledges', rather than the current ad hoc packages passed on a nation-by-nation basis.

• Adds that ministers are also to discusss 'how to tackle North Korean and Iranian military support to Russia', of which Stoltenberg says there is a 'significant amount'. Says that long-term predictible and robust support to Ukraine 'will send a message to Russia that it cnanot win the war'.
• Says that NATO allies are 'discussing ways to institutionalise more support [for Ukraine] with the NATO framework', and that they are aiming for an accord by the time of the NATO leaders' summit in the US in July.
• Speaking at the summit, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorsky says that Warsaw support the creation of a NATO mission to regularise help for Ukraine.
• Reports from the US suggest that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will seek to push through a multi-billion dollar support package for Ukraine in the coming weeks despite efforts from right-wing Republicans to block any such deal.