Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, has considered it possible to send a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine as part of a European contingent. As he noted in an interview with la Repubblica, this will enjoy external support from the US.

But Dragone stressed that a ceasefire is necessary for this.

“If a contingent is sent [to Ukraine] and the European NATO countries declare their readiness, even if the Americans do not send their military personnel, they will provide external support. I believe we can fully rely on this because solid guarantees are needed to eliminate the threat of invasion. And everyone needs this,” the NATO military official said.

Also, he assured that NATO will continue to assist the Ukrainian armed forces “resolutely and with conviction.”

In his opinion, this North Atlantic alliance is necessary to ensure international and European security, and even if it will have “two heads”—an American one facing the Indo-Pacific region, and a European one—its heart will remain united.

And regarding the military spending threshold, the senior NATO official noted that 2 percent of GDP is not enough to support the operational readiness to confront threats, but 5 percent, in his opinion, is a very high bar.