Ukraine and NATO will sign the first-ever agreement on cooperation in the field of innovation at the alliance summit in Washington, which will be held on July 9-11.

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid Technologies and Cybersecurity David van Weel announced this during the NATO-Ukraine Defense Innovators Forum, which took place in Krakow.

He said they expect to sign the first-ever agreement on cooperation in innovation between Ukraine and NATO allies. This agreement will be approved by leaders at the summit in Washington in July.

According to van Weel, this agreement is about bilateral cooperation, and not just about supporting Ukraine. It is also about learning from Ukraine, which can only be achieved through close cooperation. We must also bring Ukraine to its rightful place – in NATO. In terms of innovation, NATO must also become closer to Ukraine. A new road map for cooperation in the area of ​​Ukraine-NATO innovation, these are new joint activities between Ukraine and NATO with a focus on supply chains, the Ukrainian scientific ecosystem, experiments, exchange of information on Russian military innovations, information exchange and much more, the NATO Assistant Secretary General said.

Speaking with journalists and talking about the added value of this agreement, van Weel recalled the Ukraine-NATO Council, within the framework of which negotiations on this document are taking place. He said they ae discussing very openly what Ukraine is facing, and that's leading to allies taking that information to their capitals and looking at all the resources that countries have to come to the table and help. Particularly, this format will have a discussion between the various commanders of allied cyber defense forces and the Ukrainian side to see what are the best practices and lessons learned from other countries in creating a cyberforce command, and Ukraine can take advantage of this information, the official said.

At the same time, the NATO Assistant Secretary General said the future innovation roadmap makes this cooperation more concrete. Van Weel said they are looking at the challenges they face on the battlefield.

According to him, deepening cooperation between Ukraine and NATO in this area will not lead to large financial expenses, since basically, this is about cooperation between people. The coordination to do this is needed, but it's more about coming together regularly and working, the NATO assistant secretary general said.