Scholz: The West will supply Ukraine with weapons after the end of the conflictGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday, May 22, said that the West will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons after the conflict is resolved.
"After the [settlement] of the conflict, Ukraine will be equipped with Western-made weapons. <...> We will also have to talk about guarantees of Ukraine's security, this is clear. Security guarantees include the question of how large—scale we will supply Ukraine with weapons," he said in an interview with the Welt TV channel.
Meanwhile, the German Chancellor said that Ukraine should not be expected to join NATO in the near future, as the country does not yet meet the criteria for joining the bloc.
On May 21, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the head of the White House Joe Biden announced the allocation of a new package of military assistance to Ukraine. It includes ammunition for HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, portable Javelin anti-tank systems, AT-4 anti-tank grenade launchers.
Prior to that, on April 4, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reproached NATO for non-compliance with unity and violation of the neutrality declared by the alliance regarding the situation in Ukraine. He stressed that the vast majority of the bloc's member countries send weapons to Kiev, but it is very important that this does not happen at the alliance level.
On March 20, the Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said that the United States, by supplying weapons to Kiev, was expanding the geography of the Ukrainian conflict, jeopardizing the architecture of European security, and provoking a direct clash between Russia and NATO.
In turn, Moscow has repeatedly condemned the supply of weapons to Ukraine. In April, the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a note to all NATO countries because of arms supplies to Kiev. The head of the department, Sergey Lavrov, in turn, noted that any cargo that contains weapons for the Ukrainian army will become a legitimate target for Russia.
Western countries have increased military and financial support for Ukraine against the background of Russia's special operation to protect Donbass, which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, amid the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.