Austria will maintain its neutral status despite the failure of Sweden and Finland to apply for NATO membership.

"The situation for us looks a little different," Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told German radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, pointing to the overwhelming public support for neutrality in Austria.

Schallenberg said the country, which gets 80% of its natural gas from Russia, will continue to provide Ukraine with humanitarian aid.

"We are helping on a large scale but not with war munition and I think help for Ukraine cannot only be reduced to war munition," he told the broadcaster.

On Wednesday, Finland and Sweden officially applied to join NATO, in one of the most significant changes to the European security architecture in decades.

Switzerland, a non-EU member state long known for its neutral status, is also more inclined to join the defense alliance, the head of security policy at the Swiss defense ministry told Reuters earlier this month.