BRUSSELS, April 15 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte expressed optimism Wednesday that the alliance would successfully fund defence aid to Ukraine through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism before the end of the year.
"I'm optimistic," Rutte told reporters following a Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Berlin, while acknowledging that burden-sharing within the alliance remained uneven. "A limited number of countries are doing the heavy lifting — but we are seeing change for the better."
"We have to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to stay in the fight. So there is broad agreement on that on both sides of the Atlantic."
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Inti Landauro)
