Kalinak at NATO Summit: Slovakia to Help Ukraine with Non-lethal Systems

Bratislava/Brussels, June 14 (TASR-correspondent) - Shifting the military aid for Ukraine under exclusive NATO control is a natural development, Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer-SD) stated after a two-day summit of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, TASR learnt from its special correspondent on Friday. Kalinak noted that there seems to be still a rather long path to peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. In his view, it's good that NATO doesn't launch into a "military adventure" by deploying soldiers to this conflict and that pragmatism prevails on the part of NATO. The Defence Minister underlined that the main contribution of Slovakia within the NATO contact group of members are non-lethal systems and energy aid, which will become important for Ukrainians particularly in this year's winter. "Slovakia is joining this aid not only with non-lethal systems but also tools that help the civilian population in particular," he claimed. In terms of discussions within NATO on the aid for Ukraine, Slovakia wants to also have its investments into dual-purpose infrastructure, such as railway and road connections but also military hospitals, included into its two-percent GDP defence budget. Kalinak told the allies in Brussels that since the war in Ukraine flared up, Slovakia has lost its air and land air-defence systems, as those were gifted to Kiev. Kalinak identifies this as the greatest gap in NATO defence because if the Alliance wishes to deter its rivals, it cannot do so without an efficient defence of Slovak airspace. mf/mcs