The heads of state and government of the 30 NATO member states are meeting today in Brussels to coordinate the next responses to the war in Ukraine and the Russian aggression, MIA’s correspondent in Brussels reports. 

Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski, as well as US President Joe Biden and all other leaders of the North Atlantic Alliance arrived in Brussels yesterday for today’s extraordinary NATO summit. They will discuss the situation in Ukraine, a month after the start of the war, the strengthening of NATO members’ defenses, but also China’s role in this crisis, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced yesterday.

As Stoltenberg announced yesterday, the leaders will discuss sending new combat groups to the east of the Alliance, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, to strengthen the presence of allied countries in Russia’s neighborhood, which fear a possible Russian attack on their territory.

NATO has made it clear that any attack on its member country will promptly activate Article Five of the Alliance and lead to a response from all other Allies.

But NATO still has no intention of getting involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, neither by closing the skies over Ukraine nor sending troops. Additional aid will be sent to Kyiv to deal with Russian attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend the meeting via video link and address the 30 countries. It is known that Kyiv is asking NATO to secure the skies over Ukraine, but for most Alliance countries such a step is unthinkable because it would mean a direct confrontation with Russia, and thus a possible war on the entire continent.

The Secretary-General warned that the decisions that NATO would take today would have far-reaching consequences, and that member governments would be required to increase military spending.