Russian President Vladimir Putin has no immediate plans for peace in Ukraine, so the West should prepare to provide lethal aid to Kyiv for a long time, and NATO countries should allocate at least 2 percent of their GDP for military spending, the Secretary General said. Jens Stoltenberg of the North Atlantic Alliance in an interview with The Guardian, News.ro reports.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has warned that Vladimir Putin is waging a “war of attrition” in Ukraine, so he would like NATO members to agree to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense at the alliance’s next summit in July in Vilnius.

NATO’s annual report published on Tuesday found that only seven of its 30 member states – the US, Britain, Poland, Greece and the Baltic states – had met the current defense spending target of 2% of GDP in 2022. France, with 1.89%, and Germany, with 1.49%, failed to meet this target, although both pledged to increase them.

Earlier this week, EU members agreed to supply Ukraine with one million shells, enough for about six months. Ahead of a NATO summit in Vilnius, Stoltenberg says he wants NATO members to be willing to spend more to stop a Russian invasion.

“At our summit in Vilnius in July, I expect the Allies to agree on a new, more ambitious defense investment commitment, with at least 2% of GDP to be invested in our defense,” Stoltenberg said at the time of publication. NATO Annual Report. According to NATO sources, all members are expected to agree to this minimum threshold of 2 percent of GDP set for military spending.

Putin is not planning peace, he is planning a new war

Fierce fighting, which is now centered around the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, demonstrates that Russia is ready to “send thousands and thousands of additional soldiers, inflict significant losses for minimal gain,” the head of NATO said in an interview. for The Guardian.

“President Putin is not planning peace, he is planning a new war,” Stoltenberg continued, noting that Russia is ramping up its military-industrial production and “getting closer to authoritarian regimes like Iran or North Korea and others to try to get more weapons.” .

Therefore, the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and other Western countries should be ready to support Ukraine with weapons, ammunition and spare parts for a long time.

“The need will continue to exist because it is a war of attrition; we are talking about the industrial potential to support support,” explained the NATO Secretary General.

The war is now so intense that Ukraine’s use of shells – 4,000 to 7,000 per day, compared to Russia’s 20,000 – exceeds current Western production.

“The current level of ammunition consumption is higher than the current level of production,” but new contracts could make that change, Stoltenberg says.

It is necessary to prevent China from supplying weapons to Russia

No less important, says the head of NATO, would be to deny Beijing the supply of weapons to Russia, since Moscow, in turn, lacks key ammunition. China, whose leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow earlier this week, has been told by NATO members that there will be “consequences” if it provides lethal aid to Moscow.

China’s serious efforts to act as a mediator in the conflict should be accompanied by an attempt to “understand the prospects of Ukraine” and “conduct a direct dialogue with President Zelensky”, the head of NATO also said. But while he welcomed any peace initiatives, he notes that Beijing has yet to condemn the Russian invasion.

The West sent enough equipment to Ukraine to win back the territories

On the other hand, Stoltenberg believes that the West has provided enough military equipment, including tanks, combat vehicles and jet artillery, to “allow the Ukrainians to retake territory and free more and more land” seized by Russia after the initial invasion in February 2022. The goal, he stressed he, was to “give the opportunity to the Ukrainians to launch an offensive and recapture the territory”, but, he clarified, NATO is not a party to the conflict, and the members of the alliance made their own decisions regarding the supply of weapons and left the calculations on the battlefield to the Ukrainian commanders.

The head of NATO did not rule out sending F-16 to Ukraine

That is why the head of NATO did not rule out that member states will go even further by sending F-16 or other Western aircraft to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s emotional call for “wings for freedom” in February.

The other day, Poland and Slovakia agreed to provide 17 Soviet MiG-29 aircraft, but their total number is small.

“We have to continue to look at the need for more capabilities,” Stoltenberg said, noting that despite US President Joe Biden’s apparent initial refusal to send American-made fighters, “no decision has been made on the F-16.”

About Sweden’s accession to NATO

On the other hand, regarding Sweden’s accession to NATO, Stoltenberg assures that some progress is still being observed, despite the fact that Turkey blocks its accession, but at the same time allows Finland to continue.

Stoltenberg does not consider the failure of Sweden’s accession, in which he invested a lot of time, a personal failure. There had been some limited progress, he said, noting that NATO had managed to resume meetings and consultations with Ankara and Stockholm.

Sweden is de facto “at the NATO table,” says Stoltenberg, as it was invited to the last summit as a guest and received security guarantees from some of the alliance’s members.

Stoltenberg confirmed that he is leaving NATO in October

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg, after nearly nine years as NATO Secretary General, confirmed to The Guardian that he will leave for good in October after his mandate was extended three times.

“I made it clear that my mandate ends this fall,” he said.

The lowest point during this entire period, while he was the head of NATO, was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Stoltenberg admitted that it was a “shock, but not a surprise”, given Moscow’s long history of military interventions – in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, where the first Russian incursions took place in 2014.

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