US Def Sec Austin To Attend NATO Ministerial And Coordinate UKR Aid

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to Brussels, Belgium tomorrow for the NATO Defence Ministerial taking place at NATO Headquarters October 12-13.

• This week's ministerial will be the first meeting of NATO Defence ministers since the NATO summit in Madrid in June. It will also be the first attended by Finland and Sweden as Invitees.
• Austin will be accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to convene the sixth meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group on October 12, the group tasked with coordinating military aid to Ukraine.
• According to the Pentagon, minsters of defence "from nearly 50 nations from around the world [with gather] to discuss Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, and the continued close coordination to provide the Ukrainian people with the means necessary to defend their sovereign territory."
• The meeting comes as Ukraine increasingly presses Western allies to provide more advanced missile defence systems seen as crucial to limiting damage from future ballistic missile strikes similar to the one conducted by Russia today in reposnse to the Kerch bridge explosion.