The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, to attend the NATO Summit, which is being held this Tuesday and Wednesday. The same as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelenski, who has been pending the decision that the Atlantic Alliance takes on the entry of Ukraine into the military organization.

Sánchez and Zelenski have shown harmony by hugging upon arrival at the official dinner for heads of state and government participating in the NATO Summit, in Vilnius (Lithuania). The rapprochement between the two leaders has already been demonstrated when Sánchez traveled to Kyiv in early July to inaugurate the Spanish presidency of the EU with a meeting with Zelensky.

For his part, the Ukrainian president was already grateful “very much” for the reception of Ukrainian refugees and for supporting his “decisions”Zelenski stated at a joint press conference with Sánchez and highlighted the “enormously symbolic” presence of Sánchez in Kyiv on the first day of the semester of the Spanish presidency of the EU.

Deploy troops in Slovakia

The President of the Spanish Government announced this Tuesday that Spain will deploy troops in Slovakia and reinforce its presence in Romania, in both cases within the framework of NATO military initiatives to protect the eastern flank of the alliance.

Spain will participate in the new NATO combat battalion in Slovakia, an initiative that was already agreed at the Madrid summit last year and comes to extend the NATO retaining wall with respect to the four existing battalions in Poland and the Baltic countries since 2015.

“As a committed member, Spain is going to announce the deployment of Spanish forces in Slovakia to reinforce the eastern front and we are going to reinforce our presence in Romania with a greater number of troops,” Sánchez confirmed on his arrival at the summit of allied leaders in Lithuania.

Hours later, the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, explained in statements to journalists that Spain will lead the battalion in Slovakia, after showing its commitment and capabilities to assume this role on the eastern flank of NATO.