The NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is a NATO command inaugurated at the NATO summit in Washington in July 2024 with the stated task “to plan, coordinate, and arrange delivery of security assistance that Ukraine needs to prevail in its fight today, and in the future.” The effort is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, with key logistical hubs in the Alliance’s eastern flank. It was explicitly stated that the opening of the Command does not make NATO a party to the conflict, but enhances support to Ukraine’s self-defense. By using NATO structures, support is set to be on a firmer footing, providing more predictability for Kyiv and addressing both immediate and longer-term needs.
Ukrinform spoke with NSATU Deputy Commander Major General Maik Keller in Wiesbaden via videolink from Kyiv to get a sneak peek beyond the curtains of the command’s work to ensure that Ukraine receives uninterrupted flows of military assistance and to help Ukraine’s Armed Forces repel the ongoing Russian onslaught and build up a capable deterrence force against any future aggression.
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MATERIAL SUPPORT, TRAINING, CAPACITY BUILDING – MAIN FUNCTIONS OF NSATU
– Ukrainians did hear the news on the inception of NSATU at the NATO Summit in Washington, and its subsequent setup. But the initiative has remained largely beyond headlines, which is unfortunate for such an important asset contributing to assisting Ukraine in repelling Russia’s brutal onslaught. Could you please tell us more about its main functions?
– Yes, absolutely. But before I answer the question, I would just like to congratulate you on your Independence Day just some days ago. The fight for your independence and your everyday bravery are inspiring to us. Therefore, congratulations again, and we will do everything we can do to support this in the future.
– Thank you, General.
– Now, back to your question. Yes, on NSATU, the decision was made during the NATO Summit in Washington in July last year, and then we started to build up the headquarters and finalized the build-up phase. The initial operational capability was in December last year. So, we are up and running for eight to nine months now already. The main purpose for NSATU and the headquarters is to coordinate the support for Ukraine.
We coordinate this support basically in three divisions. The first division is the support division. It takes care of the flow of material and weapon systems from the supporting countries into Ukraine. We do this by bringing together the demand, identifying the demand of Ukraine together with our Ukrainian partners, then identifying donor nations or potential sources for the donations, and then afterwards, we make sure that the donations will flow via our logistic enabling nodes into the country. And in addition to that, the support division is also taking care of the coordination of maintenance and the sustainment of the different capabilities, so that we don’t just donate the capabilities, but also make sure that they remain operational.
The second big task for NSATU is the coordination of training. We identify the training needs for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then also identify training contributors. A big contributor is the European Union training mission, EUMAM, supported by many European nations. Then we have Operation Interflex from the United Kingdom. We have training provided by the US and many other nations, and we are in the middle of coordinating this support.
And the third big division is the future development support, which means we have one division that is focusing on the development of the future forces of Ukraine in terms of new capabilities, bringing together all the different capability coalitions in support of Ukraine, and also making sure that the forces of Ukraine are interoperable with NATO in the future.
– By the way, how many soldiers serve at your command at Wiesbaden, and which countries do they represent?
– Well, it’s quite a big crowd that is working here. We’re talking about roughly 350 people working here in Wiesbaden, coming from 30 nations, plus Ukraine, of course, that also has a support element, a liaison element. And it’s allied nations, but it’s also nations from the Indo-Pacific, such as Australia or New Zealand. So, it’s not just European and Transatlantic nations supporting Ukraine in its fight against the aggressor. It’s also other nations across the Indo-Pacific that support the rules-based international order and that are not willing to accept what is happening to your country, which is a high motivation for everybody every day.
60,000 MOVEMENTS OF MILITARY MATERIAL HAVE BEEN COMPLETED
– Let’s talk a bit more about the individual pillars of NSATU’s work. First, delivering material assistance. Where do you get precise information on what’s urgent today, and how many shipments of this assistance have you already completed to Ukraine?
– We do have different sources, of course. We have one big general source, where we have the annual demand of everything that the Ukrainian forces need. This is a huge computer software system where this is put together. This is being developed further, also in terms of a second version of this. But in addition to that, we also have a very deep and intense exchange with our Ukrainian partners on a daily basis to identify what the urgent needs are, what are the urgent requirements, to be able to also react on short notice on operational demands that occur, depending on the fight and also the consumption rates. We put this all together, as I said previously, we then identify and coordinate the demand on the one hand with our Ukrainian partners, and then identify the donating nations. And once we have identified the nations, we do transport this via our logistic enabling nodes.
And up to now, we have around 60,000 movements since NSATU is responsible for this, which started in March when we took over the logistic enabling nodes in Poland. Again, 60,000 movements without big issues since then, which I think is a huge success. And we have around 18,000 tons a month that we move through these lots, via land, rail, and air. It’s mainly on road.
DELIVERIES ARE KEPT LOW KEY TO ENSURE SECURITY
– What are the main logistical hubs that you use, and what measures are being taken to ensure the security of those supplies at the locations and along the route?
– Our biggest logistic enabling node is in Poland, and we have a bit of a smaller one in Romania, which is currently not under the command of NSATU, but will be under the command of NSATU as well in due time. So we have the two nodes, and the biggest one, as I said, is Poland with the 18,000 tons per month. And we do have air defense in place to protect against threats from the air. We do have air-to-air coverage if necessary, sort of air policing in Poland, but also in Romania from the NATO side. And of course, we use operational security, not talking about the deliveries, not really making them visible. We try to do this as low-key as possible, and as I said, it’s been 60,000 movements so far without major incidents.
– Obviously, it’s up to individual allies to decide what capabilities they are ready to deliver via NSATU, and when it can be done. Also, as part of PURL, European and Canadian allies decide how much they’re going to spend on US-made weaponry for Ukraine. Have you encountered issues with the lack of equipment from allies that is urgently needed on the battlefield?
– As I said, we identify the urgent needs maybe on a daily basis, and we then address them through donations. What we see is a change of the nature of the donations and the deliveries. When the full-scale invasion started in 2022, we saw many equipment and support coming out of stocks of the allies.
There was Soviet legacy equipment, but also Western equipment. Everything that could come out of the stocks has almost been donated. So we do see a shift more to the European defense industry, direct deliveries from the defense industry. A very good example is the air defense system IRIS-T, provided by the German company Diehl, which basically goes from the factory into the fight and is quite successful.
We see this also from different other companies. But even there, we see the need to balance between the need of Ukraine, the support of Ukraine, and the ramping up of the Western militaries in order to also meet the NATO capability targets. So, it’s quite challenging also to meet these targets, and therefore we more and more need to invest in the Ukrainian defense industry, to enable the Ukrainian defense industry, which is quite capable of taking care of the support of Ukrainian forces themselves. It will not be possible to 100%, so there will always be a need for support outside of Ukraine, but I think this is one important course of action that we need to follow, also investing in the Ukrainian defense industry.
IN TERMS OF DRONES, SUPPORT IS MOSTLY NOT ABOUT DELIVERIES BUT ABOUT FUDING UKRAINE’S OWN PRODUCTION
– What capabilities are now on top agenda in terms of the urgency? I assume it might be air defense capabilities, ammunition, maybe something else?
– The urgent requirements, of course, come from the Ukrainian forces. And when you see the operational main effort and the operational plan of the Ukrainian forces, it is, of course, to protect the rear area of Ukraine. And here, air defense plays a crucial role to intercept ballistic missiles with the Patriot systems and other, against cruise missiles, as I said, IRIS-T, NASAMS, and other systems.
So, air defense is and remains on the top of the agenda, speaking about systems and interceptors. Then, when we have a look on the other operational main effort of the Ukrainian forces, which is holding the front line, there we see a high demand still of artillery ammunition. Of course, the Western calibers, 155mm, but also the Soviet legacy calibers. So, there’s a high demand where we’re going after every day. Mines, including anti-tank mines, for instance, play an important role to hold and fortify the front line. Of course, there’s also engineer equipment in this regard. Then, we have a high need of electronic warfare. And in the drone spectrum, there’s a lot of support needed, not so much in terms of donations, but more in funding the Ukrainian defense industry, which is probably more capable than the Western industries when we have a look at drones. And that goes also for the third goal, which is deep strike capabilities, such as drones and others.
EVERY TWO TO THREE MONTHS WE COORDINATE IN HIGH DETAIL REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE DEMANDS
– Repair and maintenance. How exactly does this element work, and what is NSATU’s role in this regard?
– As I said in the beginning, we do have in our support branch not just the delivery and the flow of material, but all the sustainment and maintenance of material. And we do have regular cycles where we have sustainment and overhaul and maintenance working groups that we bring together for all the respective capabilities.
One example, when we look at air defense, we bring all the stakeholders with regard to air defense together close to the Ukrainian border. That means, of course, the allies that support this capability. We do have Western industry, we do have Ukrainian industry coming together there, and of course, the Ukrainian forces. And then these experts discuss what needs to be done to a very high level of detail in terms of spare parts, in terms of equipment, in terms of technical rights, that are necessary.
And this we do for every capability in two to three-month cycles to always meet the urgent requirements and to keep as much of the weapon systems in the fight as possible.
– We saw the news, by the way, just recently, about the repair of a Patriot radar that was coordinated by NSATU. It was a perfect example of how your command was involved. Is there anything else in the works of this kind that’s really urgent and that’s being coordinated by your command?
– Yes, it basically goes to all capabilities. I mentioned air defense, where the radar obviously played a role and it was our command coordinating this, but many other stakeholders, as the German Ministry of Defense, since it was a German Patriot radar, and also other experts from all over the place. So, it was really a huge team effort, as mostly everything that we do cannot be done simply by us. But we do have the time and the capacity to go after things, to go into detail, to talk to experts, and to bring all these guys together. And this is basically for every capability. We do have this for armor, we do have this for artillery, for electronic warfare, engineering equipment. So, everything that is highly needed, we have these working groups for and we take care, as good as possible, that they are mission-capable.
AMONG OTHER THINGS, NSATU COORDINATES “TRAINING FOR TRAINERS” PROGRAMMES
– In the beginning, you said that you coordinate also the training of Ukrainian recruits that is being done on the ground by individual allies, international efforts. What is the protocol for interaction with EUMAM or individual training missions set up by partners of Ukraine? By the way, are Ukrainian instructors integrated into the training system?
– Basically, it’s the same process, so to speak, as we do have with material support. We identify Ukrainian training needs, talking to our partners, be it basic recruit training, which is, I think, is a general demand, but, of course, it’s also specialized training for weapon systems or specialized training for particular branches.
Once we identify the training needs, the training demands, we start identifying training providers, where EUMAM is a huge one and is basically coordinating the training by the European Union countries. We have all sort of training coming out of this. They have two commands in Poland and in Germany, and we work very closely together with these commands.
We ask for the training and they provide it. But, in addition to that, we have also bilateral support from the United States, the UK, and other countries, and we also interact with them to identify what kind of training they can offer and what we then can support. And, in terms of your question on the involvement of the Ukrainian trainers, this is, of course, one of our goals, also to enable the Ukrainian trainers.
So, we do this sort of “training for trainers” programmes to specialize them for particular weapon systems, but also for other specialized training.
This is the overarching goal to increase the capability of the Ukrainian partners, Ukrainian trainers as well.
STRONG ARMED FORCES IS THE BEST SECURITY GUARANTEE FOR UKRAINE
– Speaking of building up institutionally the Ukrainian Armed Forces, helping the Army become fully interoperable with Allied forces is definitely a strategic kind of task, including in the context of providing firm security guarantees for Ukraine. What are the main challenges that you encounter on this path so far?
– Obviously, the biggest security guarantee for Ukraine is the credible and strong Ukrainian Armed Forces. And this is the overarching goal regardless of the additional security guarantees that are being currently discussed. And in order to achieve a very strong and capable Ukrainian deterrent force, the biggest task for our future development is to bring together the capability coalitions, to work together with them toward the future capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
We do have a challenge in terms of the variety of systems that we currently see in Ukraine because so many systems have been donated by so many nations, and there are many different systems in the country, which is a nightmare in terms of sustainment with spare parts, with ammunition. So, that, of course, is a huge challenge. We do have Soviet legacy systems, we do have Western systems – both air and ground.
So, that’s quite a challenge. And this is something where we see, together with our Ukrainian partners, the need to streamline all the capabilities so the Ukrainian forces decide on their future layout, how they see their future structure. We support them, of course, in these considerations.
And then our main task is bringing together the different new capabilities with our Ukrainian partners to then have one credible and capable Ukrainian force.
WEST OWES IT TO UKRAINE THAT THEIR SOLDIERS CAN LEARN FROM UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS’ EXPERIENCE
– And it’s also interesting what NSATU learns from this ongoing war of such a massive intensity, with so many innovations being implemented on the Ukrainian side.
– Yes, that’s true. Maybe just one word also to the training division, because one particular part of the training division is also the implementation of lessons learned. We have a small team in our training division that is taking care of this. We also have the Joint Analysis Training and Education Center of NATO (JATEC), located in Poland. They will also work together with our Ukrainian friends for the future of Ukrainian forces, but also for the future of NATO forces. And the training division is also developing a doctrine out of the lessons that have been identified and to develop the training for the future, because training also for our forces is crucial to be a credible force ourselves. And therefore, there’s actually really a lot that we can learn from the Ukrainian forces and also from the Ukrainian industry.
We already talked about drones, the innovation cycles that we see within the drone spectrum is quite impressive. And this is the way that we also need to learn in the Western countries, how we can implement these innovation cycles in our industry, in our military cycles, how we can get rid of bureaucracy – because obviously it’s also a big issue – and ramp up our capability. So that’s quite impressive.
That’s one hand of what we can learn in terms of building up capabilities and industry. And of course, not just technology, but also how we train our forces as Western allies, seeing the experiences that you gain on the battlefield at the moment.
Drone warfare, again, is a very good example. I mean, it will never be the same fight in the future, there will always be differences. But I think we see some permanent developments that will not disappear. And drone warfare is for sure one of these in terms of technologies, our training, the systems and the platforms. We for sure will see in the future tanks closely interoperable with drones. There’s a lot of stuff that we can learn.
And therefore, it’s also very beneficial for us to have the Ukrainian partners here in Wiesbaden and to bring as much expertise here together to feed this into our organizations.
– Do you have a sense that these lessons, this experience might help Allies prepare for a possible contingency with a potentially powerful adversary in the future?
– Yes, definitely. This is one of the main tasks for every military leader in every Western country at the moment that we learn the most out of your fight as we can.
Therefore, we have to bring all institutions to Wiesbaden to see what do we have in terms of experience, in terms of lessons learned, and how do we feed this into our organizations because this is something that we for sure owe Ukraine that our soldiers do not have to go through all the experiences that your soldiers are going through at the moment.
NSATU PLANS TO ACHIEVE LONGER VISIBILITY OF DONATIONS TO HELP UKRAINE’S ARMY WITH LONGER-TERM PLANNING
– Does your command have any particular plans until the end of this year? Maybe any particular targets that you plan to meet? And if so, in what respect?
– I think our overarching target is to stay as committed as we are now. I can guarantee this for all the people that work here in Wiesbaden. The daily commitment is really impressive. But this is also something that I hope for and I’m sure that we will achieve this from all the nations in support of Ukraine that the commitment stays as high as possible.
As I said, we will see changes in the nature of donations coming from the stocks over Western industry, going to Ukrainian industry. So we have to adapt all the time. But the commitment needs to remain the same in terms of funding, but also in terms of personal commitment.
And I think we must make one thing very clear. We have to send a very clear signal to Russia that we will stay committed and we will support Ukraine as long as necessary. So whatever Russia’s plans are for the future, however long they want to fight this war, they can be sure that we will stand by the side of Ukraine and support you. So they will have no chance to endure this fight.
In terms of a practical outcome, I think our goal is to achieve a longer or a bigger visibility of donations. So our goal would be that we have roughly six months in advance so that the Ukrainian forces know what the donations will be in terms of systems and ammunition in order to better enable them to plan their operations.
Sometimes it’s very short-notice planning and that is something that we need to increase here in Wiesbaden together with all our partners across Europe and all over the world.
– Yes, as many of our leaders have previously said, predictability of military supplies is crucial for Ukraine’s Armed Forces and its defense effort. Thank you, General, for being with us today. Thank you for your words and definitely thank you for your efforts in assisting Ukraine.
– Thank you. Slava Ukraini.
– Heroyam Slava.
Ievgen Matiushenko, Kyiv
Photos provided by the NSATU press service
