NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that allies should consider lifting restrictions on the use of NATO weapons by Ukraine to hit targets in Russian territory.
"I believe that the time has come to consider some of these restrictions to enable the Ukrainians to really defend themselves," Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech in Prague, ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
Some NATO countries supply arms to Ukraine without conditions, but others stipulate they must only be used against targets on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine argues that Russia is launching strikes on Ukraine from the Russian side of the border.
Stoltenberg said that earlier in the war, most of the fighting took place "deep into Ukrainian territory. But now - the last weeks and month - most of the heavy fighting has taken place actually along the border between Russia and Ukraine."
Earlier in the day, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told reporters his country had "no problem with Ukraine defending itself against an aggressor" and letting Kiev use munitions supplied by Prague to strike targets on Russian territory.
Some attacks "necessarily need to take place in Russian territory," he said.
In a video posted to X by the Hungarian government's chief spokesman, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said it was a "crazy idea for the Ukrainians to fire Western weapons into Russia's interior."
"I think it's a crazy idea because, as we've seen so far, the Russians will fire back," he said.
Hungary has consistently opposed sending weapons to Ukraine.
The Kremlin once again warned Ukraine's allies against allowing Kiev to hit Russian territory using Western weapons, with President Vladimir Putin's spokesman promising "consequences" if such strikes were to occur.
"It will ultimately be very damaging to the interests of those countries that have chosen the path of escalating tensions," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
In a meeting expected to span Thursday and Friday, NATO foreign ministers are expected to try to make progress in talks over a €100 billion ($108 billion) plan to transfer responsibility for combined aid from an informal, United States-led initiative to the formal structures of NATO itself.
At the moment, NATO itself is not officially providing any lethal aid to Ukraine's defensive war against Russia's invasion of its territory. Instead, NATO member states have been coordinating military aid through the Ukraine Contact Group (UCG), an initiative chaired by the US.
The idea behind the UCG is to help defend the position that NATO is not a party to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
But the UCG's reliance on US coordination has European allies worried that it could falter if November's presidential election returns Donald Trump to the White House.
There are doubts about Trump's willingness to support Ukraine in the long term, particularly after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally, said the former president "will not give a penny" to the Ukrainian war effort.
In April, Stoltenberg refused to be drawn on whether his proposal had anything to do with the possible return of Trump. He said the point is to make military aid to Ukraine more stable and predictable.
The proposal met resistance, in part because some allies prefer to continue supplying military aid outside of NATO. Another is that commitments made through NATO could be more strongly binding.
On Thursday, dpa learned that Stoltenberg is now asking the alliance's member states guarantee they will at least maintain - if not increase - their current level of support over the next few years.
He puts the total value of allies' support over the last two years at €80 billion ($87 billion) - an average of €40 billion per year.
NATO allies are also expected to discuss air defence on their eastern flank.
Also looming over the meeting is the question of who will be the next secretary general after Stoltenberg, who hopes to step down in July.
The candidate with the most support is the outgoing prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, but every NATO country has a veto - a candidate needs unanimous support to get the job - and Hungary has refused to support Rutte.
Another candidate is Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
