One year into the Russia-Ukraine war: The response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine has been a clear demonstration of unit and solidarity

The Russian Federation's military aggression against Ukraine has had an unprecedented impact on the defence of NATO and EU member countries. They have pulled together in an effort to back the country under attack and to improve their defences by upgrading their structures and forces via closer and deeper defence cooperation.

As has been confirmed by State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Defence Marian Majer, the Alliance is determined to ensure the continued provision of assistance to Ukraine to win the war it neither started nor provoked, and for which Ukrainian defenders and citizens are dying every day as entire cities are destroyed.

On arms deliveries to Ukraine, he made clear that NATO member states act either bilaterally or multilaterally, consider, for example, the Ramstein format, and that any gifting of military support to Ukraine is the sovereign decision of each country. This means NATO as an organisation does not supply any weaponry to Ukraine.

On Russia's onslaught on Ukraine, the State Secretary Marian Majer said: ”Putinʼs senseless war in Ukraine poses an unprecedented threat to Europeʼs peace, freedom and stability. In NATO, we are, therefore, working to strengthen our intra-alliance coordination and to reinforce our deterrence and defence. Thanks to this, security in the trans-Atlantic area will be enhanced even more.”

Director General of the MOD Defence Policy Department Martin Sklenár said: “Adaptation processes have been ongoing across the Alliance to transform it in a way that its structures and forces are capable of facing the changed security landscape, especially on NATOʼs eastern flank.”

On this note, a large focus of the militaries' work so far has been on the speed of the response and the availability of heavy mechanised capabilities to deter Russia's potential aggression.