NATO MNE and Blinken in Brussels to reinforce support for Ukraine

O Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, João Gomes Cravinho, participates in the meeting. At 1pm local time (12pm in Lisbon), NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, and US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will hold a press conference.

Between today and Wednesday, the diplomacy leaders of the 31 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will meet at the organization’s headquarters with the purpose of sending a political and diplomatic signal that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not forgotten and is still the priority.

The conflict that erupted more than 640 days ago, after a ‘first rehearsal’ in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea, has lost momentum in the media, with media and diplomatic attention focused on the Middle East, particularly the conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas and the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

But to rule out potential doubts about the continuity of support for Ukraine, and when voices against economic and financial aid gather within the European Union, the heads of diplomacy of the 31 Member States want to convey that support for Kiev is unequivocal and is about to last as long as the war continues.

With the war now in a phase of attrition and a counteroffensive advancing at a pace that NATO and the government in Kiev consider to be normal, but described as a “stalemate” by the Ukrainian Chief of Staff himself, doubts are growing about the longevity of Western support.

The situation in the Middle East will not, however, be forgotten, and government officials should discuss how to make the four-day truce last, extended on Monday for another two days, for the release of people kidnapped by Hamas and detained Palestinian citizens by Israeli forces.

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