The new NATO command center in Wiesbaden will plan and coordinate security assistance for Kyiv as it continues to defend against Moscow’s aggression.
Located in the southern German town of Wiesbaden, known for its spas and hot springs, the center is NATO’s latest effort to support the Ukrainian military. Situated at a former US Army base, the command center will coordinate training and equipment donations to Ukraine and will be organized and led by a three-star general.
This center is the focal point of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine plan, announced during the alliance’s anniversary summit in Washington last week. The base will house approximately 700 personnel from NATO allied nations and select partners.
NATO asserts that while the command center in Germany will enhance its support of Ukraine, it does not make the alliance a party to the conflict. Sviatoslav Yurash of Ukraine’s Servant of the People party emphasized the importance of NATO training on the frontline, saying, “We must certainly meet those people who have produced those munitions and try to train us.”
At the NATO summit in Washington, the alliance reaffirmed that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to membership. However, foreign policy experts caution that there are potential limits to how far the alliance will go in integrating Ukraine. Leonard Schuette, a senior researcher at the Munich Security Conference, noted, “It will hopefully inspire confidence in NATO’s support for Ukraine, but everyone knows, including Ukrainian politicians, that US domestic politics will decide Ukraine’s NATO membership.”
Officials have stated that Ukraine can only join the alliance once the war with Russia is over. During the summit, the US also announced the deployment of long-range missiles in Germany. These conventional long-range fire units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, significantly extending the range of current land-based systems in Europe.
Green MP Sebastian Schaefer, a member of the parliamentary defense committee, told Euronews that Germany must focus on re-arming itself. “This is one of the realities of the 21st century. It’s not a good thing to see, but it’s necessary. It would be much wiser if we could live together in peace on this planet. But this is currently not the case, so we need to prepare,” Schaefer said.
Despite this, Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius mentioned that the ruling coalition approved less than a fifth of the military budget increase he had requested.
euronews