United Kingdom Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has criticized Kiev at the NATO Summit in Vilnius as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urges the trans-Atlantic alliance to step up its military supplies.
“We’re not Amazon,” Wallace told journalists on the margins of the NATO Summit. The press interaction took place after a meeting between UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Zelensky at the summit.
Wallace advised Kiev to be more grateful for the delivery of billions of dollars of weapons’ supplies by NATO allies since the start of Moscow’s special military operation last February.
"My counsel to the Ukrainians is sometimes if you’re persuading countries to give up their stocks,” Wallace remarked. “We are not Amazon, that’s true. I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list.”
The United Kingdom is the second-biggest military donor to Ukraine, having committed almost $6 billion in military assistance to Kiev since last year.
It is also hosting a training named ‘Operation Interflex’ to train 30,000 new and existing Ukrainian security personnel.
The US, the biggest donor of Ukraine, has pledged over $50 billion in assistance and supplies since last year.
NATO Refuses to Give Time Frame for Ukraine’s Membership
The NATO allies have refused to heed to Zelensky’s demand of a fixed “time frame” for Kiev’s membership to the alliance.
The joint communique released on Tuesday said that “additional democratic and security sector reforms” were required for Ukraine’s accession to NATO.
“We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met,” it said.
However, in a concession to Kiev, the NATO announced a new multi-year assistance package to facilitate the transition of Ukrainian armed forces to “NATO standards” as well as “help rebuild” the country’s security sector.
NATO has also set-up a new NATO-Ukraine Council, the first meeting of which was held on Wednesday.
Separately, the G-7 club of advanced democracies have reportedly vowed to provide “security guarantees” to Ukraine as a stopgap measure till Kiev formally accedes to NATO.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov termed the security guarantees as an “extremely erroneous and potentially very dangerous” move.
“By providing any security guarantees to Ukraine, these countries ignore the international principle of indivisibility of security...By providing security guarantees to Ukraine, they are encroaching on Russia's security,” Peskov said on Wednesday.