Austin says global weapons chiefs will convene to discuss further arming Ukraine

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said today the United States, in coordination with NATO, will soon host a meeting of armaments directors from nations around the world to discuss how the global defense industrial base can be "streamlined" to continue arming Ukraine in its ongoing fight against a Russian invasion.

Austin, speaking at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, said details about the meeting, which is slated to occur “in the next few weeks,” would be forthcoming.

“The round-the-clock efforts to manufacture new armaments are key to Ukraine’s success,” he said. “We’re going to move even faster and push even harder.”

The meeting is likely to include Bill LaPlante, the head of Pentagon weapons acquisition, who spoke Wednesday about ongoing discussions to aid the U.S. defense industrial base amid historic inflation.

Austin said today the “special session” with the armaments chiefs will be conducted under the auspices of the multination Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which includes more than 50 countries.

“They will discuss how our defense industrial bases can best equip Ukraine’s future forces with the capabilities that they need,” he said. “We all believe that working together we can better streamline things, we can shorten acquisition times, perhaps work on supply chain issues, learn from each other, we can increase interoperability. I think there’s broad agreement that this is an area that we can work on together.”

Austin’s announcement follows the latest tranche of U.S. aid to Ukraine, which includes $657 million of weapons transfers.

“Ukraine is fighting for its life,” he said.