If Russian forces launch an attack on a Western convoy delivering arms to Ukraine, NATO will consider this a reason to invoke Article 5 of the military bloc's treaty, which assures its members’ collective self-defense, Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, claimed on Sunday, citing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

“Today, the head of NATO… Mr. Stoltenberg has made a statement: if a single projectile, a single bullet hits a convoy that … [is delivering arms] to Ukraine, [NATO] will consider it a trigger for Article 5 [of the North Atlantic Treaty],” Danilov said while on air on Rada, the Ukrainian parliament's TV Channel.

Neither NATO nor Stoltenberg personally has made any public statements on Sunday confirming or denying Danilov’s assertion. The Ukrainian official’s statement comes a day after Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Russia would consider arms convoys heading for Ukraine to be “legitimate targets” for Russian forces. Ryabkov has not elaborated on whether the convoys could be targeted on Ukrainian territory or elsewhere.

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