US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin noted that the organization will continue to support KievBRUSSELS, October 13.
/tass/. The North Atlantic Alliance will not be involved in hostilities in Ukraine, but will continue to support Kiev and defend every inch of its territory. This was announced on Thursday by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
"Let me say once again that NATO does not pose a threat to Russia and does not seek confrontation with it. But our defensive alliance, as always, will defend every inch of NATO territory. The main task of NATO has not changed - to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each ally, and America remains deeply committed to this task, both to our NATO allies and to Article 5 [of the Washington Collective Security Treaty]," the Pentagon chief said at a press conference following a two-day meeting of the alliance's defense ministers in Brussels..
According to him, "NATO continues to clearly state that it will not get involved" in the fighting in Ukraine, but "will support [Kiev] in self-defense efforts."
NATO is discussing additional steps to strengthen the alliance's collective defense, as well as efforts to revitalize the military-industrial complex of the West, the minister said.
"We will continue to strengthen NATO's collective defense. <...> We discussed additional steps that the alliance is taking to strengthen our collective defense. <...> We discussed our efforts in addressing the critical issue related to ammunition stocks and defense-industrial potential," he said.
Austin noted that on Thursday, the heads of defense departments also discussed the work done since the last NATO summit, which took place in June in Madrid.
The United States calls on NATO partners to start increasing defense spending and bring it to a level above 2% of GDP.
"As we have already said, 2% of GDP is the amount of investment that we would expect from them. However, in the conditions when we see how the situation is developing, we would urge these countries to reach a level above this 2%, because we will have to invest more in expanding the industrial base, as well as in making sure that we do everything right to replace the [weapons] that we supplied to Ukraine," - he said.
In 2014, at the request of the United States and NATO, the alliance countries committed to increase their military spending to 2% of GDP by 2024, but in 2021 only 10 of the 30 states of the bloc reached this mark. At the alliance summit held in Madrid in June, the NATO allies reaffirmed their commitment to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense spending.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the holding of the SVO in Ukraine in connection with the request of the leaders of the republics of Donbass for help. He stressed that Moscow's plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories, and the goals are demilitarization and denazification of the country. The West, in response to Russia's decision, began gradually imposing numerous and large-scale sanctions against it. Along with this, Western states have begun to supply weapons and military equipment to Kiev for amounts estimated at this stage in the tens of billions of dollars. A number of Western politicians have admitted that it is, in fact, an economic war against Russia. As Putin stated on March 16, the Western sanctions policy towards Moscow has all the signs of aggression. He pointed out that the policy of containing Russia is a long-term strategy of the West.
