Western countries should send more heavy weapons to Kyiv to help fight the advancing Russian army in eastern Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said late Tuesday.

• Read also: [LIVE] 111th day of war in Ukraine: here are all the latest developments

"Yes, Ukraine should have more heavy weapons," Stoltenberg told a press conference in The Hague after meeting with leaders of seven European countries that are members of the Atlantic Treaty Organization. north (NATO), on the eve of an important summit.

NATO has started to "step up" its arms deliveries to Kyiv, he added, noting that the Ukrainians are "absolutely dependent on [these deliveries] to deal with Russia's brutal aggression".

The Contact Group for Ukraine is meeting in Brussels on Wednesday around US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss a possible acceleration of these arms deliveries, on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of NATO in the Belgian capital.

Ukraine continues to ask the West to deliver more weapons and advanced military equipment to deal with the Russian invasion, and criticizes some European countries for dragging their feet.

On the eve of the summit, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, and his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, received Mr. Stoltenberg and several European leaders, including the head of the Polish government, Mateusz Morawiecki, whose country is a neighbor of Ukraine.

"We haven't done enough to defend Ukraine, support the Ukrainian people, their freedom and their sovereignty," Morawiecki said during the same press conference where Stoltenberg spoke. .

“That is why I urge you [...] to do much more to deliver weapons and artillery to Ukraine. They need it to defend their country”, he said, judging that Western countries would ruin their “credibility” in the event of Ukraine's defeat against Russia.

"It would be a total failure and a disaster for the European Union, our values, and for NATO," he said.