NEW YORK, July 15. /TASS/. US weapons for Ukraine will be supplied through NATO countries to ensure they are ready for immediate use on the battlefield, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in an interview with Fox News.

"There are two sides to this. One is the logistics, and NATO is good at logistics. So get the weapons into Ukraine in a way that they can make maximum use of them, so packaged in packages which are really useful, and for them to be maximum effective," he clarified, answering a reporter’s question as to why the weapons would be supplied to Kiev through NATO rather than directly.

According to Rutte, the second reason is financing. "He (US President Donald Trump - TASS) said, ‘Hey, listen, Mark, we want to deliver these weapons into Ukraine, making sure that they can sustain in the fight, that they somehow are able to defend themselves against the Russians. But you, guys in Europe, have to pay for it,’" the secretary-general stated.

Earlier, Trump announced that Washington would continue transferring weapons and military equipment to Kiev if Europe agreed to pay for the supplies. The US leader specified that NATO would coordinate this process. In addition, he noted that the United States would impose import duties of approximately 100% on Russia and its trading partners if Moscow and Washington fail to reach an agreement on a settlement in Ukraine within 50 days.