Withtoltenberg on relations with Russia after the settlement in Ukraine: as before, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Western countries “should not underestimate Russia,” which has “huge resources”
Jens Stoltenberg
We should not expect normalization of relations between NATO and Russia after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, Handelsblatt reports.
“As before, it won’t. Even if the guns are silenced in Ukraine, we should not expect that our relations with Russia will normalize,” he said (quoted by TASS).
The NATO Secretary General also expressed the opinion that now the decisive stage of the conflict in Ukraine has come and Kiev needs to supply weapons for victory. He said that Western countries “should not underestimate Russia”, which has “huge resources”.
“We are in a decisive phase of the war,” Stoltenberg believes.
He called the commitments made by the alliance countries to supply heavy military equipment to Kiev important and expects more military assistance in the near future.
After the start of the Russian special operation, the Ukrainian authorities repeatedly asked Western countries to supply heavy military equipment, including tanks and fighter jets. The United States, Germany and France in January promised to supply Ukraine with dozens of infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs)Bradley, Marder and AMX-10 RC, and the UK announced the transfer of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev.
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Germany has so far evaded the transfer of German Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Poland and Finland wanted this, but in order to send tanks to Kiev, they need to get Berlin’s consent. Bloomberg, citing sources, wrote that the German government is likely to approve this next week. At the same time, the Leopard manufacturer, German Rheinmetall, indicated that if Germany agrees, the tanks can be delivered no earlier than next year.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the military support of Kiev from the West. The Kremlin stated that this would not interfere with the goals of the special operation, and also expressed the opinion that Western arms supplies would bring Ukraine “more suffering”.
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