BRUSSELS (AP) NATO marked on Thursday 75 years of collective defense across Europe and North America, with its top diplomats vowing to stay the course in Ukraine as better armed Russian troops assert control on the battlefield.

The anniversary comes as the now-32-nation alliance weighs a plan to provide more predictable longer-term military support to Ukraine . Plagued by ammunition shortages, Ukraine this week lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks.

Ukraine is under heavy attacks, like daily, 24-seven, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told reporters, appealing for more military materiel for Ukraine like air defense systems, drones and artillery shells.

We need to give these systems which we are not using to Ukraine, to take and protect their people, civil infrastructure and also energy infrastructure, he said, before a ceremony with his counterparts to mark the day NATOs founding treaty was signed: April 4, 1949, in Washington.