5.30.23
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia—When NATO leaders meet for their annual summit in July, Estonia will ask them to consider a “roadmap” for Ukraine to join the alliance, Estonia’s minister of defense said Monday. “What we have to push in Vilnius is that there has to be a clear understanding [of] what are the next steps for Ukraine,” Hanno Pevkur said at the annual GLOBSEC conference here. That doesn’t necessarily mean bringing Ukraine into NATO immediately. Pevkur pointed out that even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that winning the war against Russia must come first. But, the Estonian said, it’s time for the alliance to be more direct about its plans. Pevkur said that’s because Russia’s Vladimir Putin still aims to conquer Ukraine, even if he has reduced his immediate objectives to consolidating his limited territorial gains. But changing politics in Europe and the United States also add urgency. After July’s meeting in Lithuania’s capital, “the next summit in Washington will be just before the U.S. elections in 2024. So this will be a huge challenge for all of us…What will be the message coming out from Washington? So, I would like to see that we will have a clear roadmap.” France has similarly pushed for a roadmap for Ukraine’s ascension into NATO to be on the agenda this summer.
On the procurement side, Pevkur said that NATO must increase weapons standardization, in part by encouraging joint acquisitions by alliance members. Many weapons fire 155mm ammunition, he noted, but not all can use the same 155mm shells. "At the end of the day what is unacceptable is not that we have different guns. It’s the fact that the artillery shells that we're using cannot be put in each of these guns because we didn't do the homework of making them standard enough, not only not by caliber but so that every artillery shell…should be used on any NATO gun that is available and that should be an absolute requirement,” Grand said. For Sherriff, the key procurement lesson coming out of Ukraine is simply this: procure faster, like the Ukrainians themselves.
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