Will “shortly” be sending further military equipment to Ukraine

Foreign affairs minister João Gomes Cravinho has said Portugal will be raising no objections to the requests by Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

“Portugal has a very close, very friendly relationship with Finland and Sweden”, he said yesterday in Brussels where he took part in a meeting with other foreign ministers of the alliance. 

Both Finland and Sweden are member states of the European Union – and as such NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said he can see the ‘accession process’ being “quite fast”.

Finland shares a long land border with Russia – and has in the past been at pains not to join NATO in case it was seen as an act of provocation.

The invasion of Ukraine – after it showed itself keen to join the Alliance – has changed Finns’ minds.

Meantime, Portugal is also preparing to send more military equipment to Ukraine, said Gomes Cravinho.

Portugal “has already sent more than 60, 70 tonnes of war material to Ukraine and will send more shortly,” he said, confirming that the material to be sent will be of the same type as before because “it is the material that Portugal has available to put in the hands of the Ukrainians.”

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