Banners displaying the NATO logo are placed at the entrance of new NATO headquarters during the move to the new building, in Brussels, Belgium April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/Files
BERLIN (Reuters) - NATO has taken over the coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the United States, as planned, a source said on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against NATO sceptic Donald Trump.
The step, coming after a delay of several months, gives NATO a more direct role in the war against Russia's invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
Diplomats, however, acknowledge that the handover to NATO may have a limited effect given that the U.S. under Trump could still deal a major setback to Ukraine by slashing its support as it is the alliance's dominant power and provides the majority of arms to Kyiv.
Trump, who will take office in January, has said wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly but not how he aims to do so. He has long criticised the scale of U.S. financial and military aid to Ukraine.
The headquarters of NATO's new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a U.S. base in the German town of Wiesbaden.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters it was now fully operational. No public reason has been given for the delays.
In the past, the U.S-led Ramstein group, an ad hoc coalition of some 50 nations named after a U.S. air base in Germany where it first met, has coordinated Western military supplies to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, the outgoing administration in Washington is scrambling to ship as many weapons as possible to Kyiv amid fears that Trump may cut down on deliveries of military hardware to Ukraine.
Trump threatened to quit NATO during his first term as president and demanded allies must spend 3% of national GDP on their militaries, compared with NATO's target of 2%.
NSATU is set to have a total strength of some 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO's military headquarters SHAPE in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania.
Russia has condemned increases in Western military aid to Ukraine as risking a wider war.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Alison Williams)
