Blanar Pledges Continued Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine at NATO

Brussels, December 4 (TASR-correspondent) - Slovakia will continue to assist Ukraine in the humanitarian sector and with the delivery of non-lethal military equipment, stated Foreign Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar (Smer-SD) after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Andriy Sybiha, also present at the meeting, described the difficult situation in Ukraine regarding supply and energy infrastructure outages ahead of the coming winter. "There is a huge problem with electricity. There are daily outages for 12 to 16 hours. I presented in my speech that Slovakia is helping Ukraine with electricity supplies on a commercial basis and we will continue to do so," Blanar said. Slovak minister noted that Sybiha also addressed the difficult situation on the battlefield and explained why Kiev is requesting further military assistance from the allies, particularly in the field of air defence. Blanar stated that Slovakia no longer has anything to supply from the reserves of its own armed forces and that at present, it does not have its own airspace protected. Therefore, he also called on the Alliance to honour its commitments and continue providing a rotational air defence system for the countries on NATO's eastern flank, including Slovakia. The minister stressed that Slovakia will complete the 14th humanitarian package for Ukraine by the end of the year, which also includes electric generators, and wants to continue to assist with supplies of non-lethal military equipment. lin/mcs/mf