Prompt NATO: West Must Be Prepared to Support Ukraine in Long War

Through an interview for The Guardian, Stoltenberg said that the Russian president was involved in a <x0 war of destruction” and that he wanted NATO members to agree to spend 2% of GDP on defence as minimum at the next alliance summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

Hard fight, currently focused on Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, shows that Russia is ready to throw thousands of other troops for minimal benefits”, the NATO leader was quoted as saying.

“President Putin does not plan peace, he is planning for more war”, Stoltenberg continued, adding that Russia is increasing military industrial output and “approaches authoritarian regimes like Iran or North Korea, and others to get more weapons”.

As a result, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and other Western states were prepared to support Ukraine with long arms, ammunition, and reserves.

But “nevoja will continue to exist,...”, the secretary general said.

Currently, writes The Guardian, the war was so intense that the use of artillery missiles from Ukraine between 4,000 and 7,000 a day against Russia's 20,000 ʹ was exceeding Western production.

“The current array of ammunition expenditures is higher than the actual production rate”, Stoltenberg showed, although new contracts meant that this was changing. That was why EU members agreed earlier this week to supply Ukraine with a million shells, enough for six months or more.

However, going to what is expected to be his final summit, Stoltenberg said he wanted NATO members to prepare to spend more to “brought back” Russia.

Annual Report NATO, published Tuesday, acknowledged that only seven of the 30 US member states -- Great Britain, Poland, Greece and the Baltic countries -- met the current goal of 2% of GDP defence spending in 2022. France, with 1.89% and Germany at 1.49%, failed, though both are committed to growth.

At our summit in Vilnius in July, I expect the allies to agree on a new, more ambitious promise of defence investments, with 2% of GDP as a minimum to invest in our defence”, Stoltenberg stressed.

Just as important, the leader said NATO, it would be to convince China of its failure to supply weapons to Russia, while also not having key ammunition. China, whose leader, Xi Jinping, visited Moscow at the beginning of the week, was told by NATO members that there would be “consequences” if she would help “deadly” Moscow.

However, Stoltenberg believes that the West had provided sufficient military equipment, including tanks, war vehicles and rocket artillery, “to enable Ukrainians to regain territory and increasingly free land” occupied by Russia since the beginning of aggression in February 2022.

The goal, he stressed, was “to enable Ukrainians to launch an offensive and resume territory”, though he said NATO was not a party in the conflict, with coalition members making their decision to secure weapons and leaving the battlefield calculations to Ukraine's commanders.

But Head of NATO did not rule out the possibility of member states moving further by sending F-16 or other Western planes to Ukraine, following a prayer by its president, Volody Zelensky, in February. We remember that this month Poland and Slovakia agreed to provide 17 MG-29 of the Soviet Standard, but the total number available is small.