Next Ramstein Meeting Set for July 21 with Pentagon Chief Expected

The next meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group will take place on Monday, 21 July, and is expected to be attended by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, among others.

The Gaze reports on it, referring to a post by the British Joint Delegation to NATO on social media X.

The statement notes that on 21 July, Britain and Germany will co-chair the next meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, known as the ‘Ramstein’ format.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and the new commander of NATO forces in Europe, Alexus Grinkevich, are expected to attend.

This will also be the first meeting after changes in the Ukrainian government and the appointment of Denys Shmyhal as defence minister to replace Rustem Umerov. 

The announcement did not specify the format of the meeting, but Bundeswehr Chief of Staff Christian Freyding said earlier that it was planned as an online meeting. 

In June, the US Secretary of Defense missed the Ramstein meeting for the first time – the country was represented by its ambassador to NATO, and Hegseth also missed the Ukraine-NATO Council meeting (for more details on these events, see the video blog Kremlin support or NATO's ‘ignoring’ of Ukraine? During the April Ramstein meeting in Brussels, Hegseth participated online.

Prior to that, US representatives joined the meeting of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ for the first time.

On 14 July, US President Donald Trump announced an agreement between NATO and the US to supply weapons to Ukraine.

As The Gaze reported earlier, at the previous Ramstein meeting, Ukraine's defence assistance, structured under the ‘Danish model,’ was set to increase to €1.3 billion in 2025, marking a significant boost in military aid.