NATO command in Germany to assist Ukraine is up and running, says Rutte
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo of German service members via Bundeswehr
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A new NATO command in the German city of Wiesbaden has taken up its work to coordinate Western military aid for Ukraine, the alliance's Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday.
The command takes over coordination of the aid from the United States, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against NATO sceptic U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
"The NATO command in Wiesbaden for security assistance and training for Ukraine is now up and running", Rutte told reporters at NATO's headquarters in Brussels.
Trump, who will take office in January, has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly without elaborating how he aims to do so. He has long criticised the scale of U.S. financial and military aid to Ukraine.
The headquarters of NATO's new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a U.S. base in the German town of Wiesbaden.
The U.S.-led Ramstein group of around 50 nations, an ad hoc coalition named after a U.S. air base in Germany where it first met, has coordinated Western military supplies to Kyiv since 2022.
It will continue to exist as a political forum as NSATU assumes the military implementation of decisions taken there.
Diplomats, however, acknowledge that the handover to NATO may have a limited effect given that the United States under Trump could still deal a major setback to Ukraine by slashing its support, as it is the alliance's dominant power and provides the majority of arms to Kyiv.
NSATU is set to have around 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO's military headquarters SHAPE in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania.
Russia has condemned increases in Western military aid to Ukraine as risking a wider war.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
