At the meeting, Ukraine is also expected to receive pledges of multi-year support from NATO countries. In recent days, Ukraine, including Kyiv, has been subjected to very extensive attacks by Russia.
Putin is desperate, says NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about the attacks at a press conference in Ankara ahead of Tuesday and Wednesday's summit in the city.
Rutte returns to the fact that European NATO countries and Canada have made significant progress towards the goal of increasing their defense budgets. A goal that was set at last year's summit in The Hague, after heavy pressure from Donald Trump and in response to Europe’s lagging defense in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Last year, European NATO countries and Canada increased their defense spending by 20 percent, says Mark Rutte.
A stronger Europe in a stronger NATO, is Rutte's midterm assessment of Europe’s and Canada’s rearmament so far, on the way to the GDP target of the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP in defense spending by 2035, of which 3.5 percentage points in purely military investments.
