NATO Defence Ministers discussed Russian invasion of Ukraine, strengthening the Alliance’s defence posture

Author: by Jakub Fajnor

On Wednesday 16 March 2022, Defence Minister Jana Černochová took part in the extraordinary meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Brussels. The meeting’s key outcome was the condemnation of the Russian invasion and a demonstration of the unified Allied support to Ukraine.

Ukraine was on the agenda of the first session, which proved the unity of the West, including through the participation of Defence Ministers of Finland, Sweden, Georgia and EU representative, and Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov joined the session online.

The Czech Minister covered the military and humanitarian aid the Czech Republic has provided to Ukraine and noted the Czech MoD has helped the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague collect over CZK 600 million for military materiel from Czech defence industries. “The Czech Republic is regarded as a country that is helping truly massively to Ukraine, be it through military materiel and caring for Ukrainian refugees,“ Minister Černochová.

The hallmark of the second session was the need to strengthen NATO defence posture. NATO Allies agreed it was crucial to strengthen NATO’s defence and deterrence while avoiding steps that could lead to direct military confrontation.

The specific step in this regard is the strengthening of NATO’s Eastern Flank, in which the Czech Republic will play an important role as the lead nation of the multinational battle group in Slovakia. “Within the limits of the Parliamentary mandate, we will deploy up to 650 service personnel. Side by side with us, service members from Germany, Poland, United States and Slovenia and most probably also from the Netherlands will be involved,“ Minister Černochová remarked.

An important topic all NATO Allies concurred on was the need to accelerate defence investments. The Czech Defence Minister assured the allies that the Government of the Czech Republic would do its best to meet the 2% GDP defence spending benchmark.

“The MoD is in the best position to make up for the deficit in defence spending as soon as possible,“ Minister Černochová noted and went on to say she also discussed to need to achieve 2% GDP on defence with U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin. During a short bilateral meeting, the Czech Defence Minister and the U.S. Defense Sectary also discussed that the Czech Republic would be interested in additional H-1 Viper/Venom helicopters, because the 12 units the Czech Republic is to receive in the next year turns out to insufficient given the current situation.

A bilateral meeting was also held between Minister Černochová and UK Secretary of State for Defence Rt. Hon. Ben Wallace. The agenda was again dominated by the situation in Ukraine, but the debate also largely covered the high quality Czech-British defence cooperation. The Ministers agreed they wanted to deepen the cooperation, including in the Visegrad Four plus United Kingdom format.