BERLIN (Reuters) -NATO has taken over coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the U.S. as planned, a source said on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against NATO sceptic U.S. President-elect 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 he 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.
NATO's military headquarters SHAPE said its Ukraine mission was beginning to assume responsibilities from the U.S. and international organizations.
"The work of NSATU ... is designed to place Ukraine in a position of strength, which puts NATO in a position of strength to keep safe and prosperous its one billion people in both Europe and North America," said U.S. Army General Christopher G. Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
"This is a good day for Ukraine and a good day for NATO."
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.
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%.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration in Washington is scrambling to ship as many weapons as possible to Kyiv amid fears that Trump may cut deliveries of military hardware to Ukraine.
NSATU is set to have a total strength of about 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.