NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte addressed the member countries of the Alliance with a proposal to allocate 0.25% of GDP for Ukraine. Politico reported this on May 12, citing sources.
The publication's interlocutors said that Rutte raised this issue at a closed meeting of NATO ambassadors at the end of last month in order to reduce tension in the Alliance that arose due to uneven contributions to help Ukraine. This idea of 0.25% of GDP for Ukraine from its allies was expressed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky last year, Politico recalled.
If the allies agree to the proposal, annual financial support for Ukraine could triple to about $143 billion, based on NATO's estimate of the combined GDP of allies. By comparison, last year Kyiv was provided with approximately $45 billion in security funds, which included the purchase of weapons for the army, investments in Ukrainian defense enterprises and joint Alliance programs to acquire American weapons for Ukraine, the article says.
According to the Kiel Institute's Ukraine Support Tracker, a research project that collects and compiles information on all government commitments to support Ukraine, the Baltic states, the Netherlands and Poland allocate a larger percentage of their GDP to Ukraine in military aid than many other allies. According to the author of the publication, the Secretary General’s proposal was partly related to this.
Politico wrote that Rutte is trying to ensure stable support for Ukraine while reducing contradictions within NATO, because after US President Donald Trump effectively stopped new military aid programs for Ukraine, the brunt of support for Kyiv fell on European allies. Speaking in Montenegro, the Secretary General emphasized that the July NATO summit in Ankara will focus primarily on Ukraine and its support.
Rutte's proposal has sparked skepticism among some allies, particularly France and Britain, the sources said. Without the agreement of all NATO members, it is unlikely to be implemented in the current format, the media writes. Neither France nor the UK responded to the editor's request for comment.
