NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday advocated sending more arms to Ukraine as the fastest way to achieve peace in Europe.
«It may sound like a paradox, but military support to Ukraine is the fastest way to peace,» the Norwegian has told the German agency DPA in a year-end interview.
According to Stoltenberg, the best way to ensure that Ukraine prevails as an independent democratic state and achieve a negotiated peaceful solution is to provide armaments, as «it is the only way» to convince President Vladimir Putin that he will not achieve his goal of taking control of Ukraine.
Asked about the possibility that Russia is trying to slow down the war in order to prepare for a new offensive in the spring, as the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance himself predicted, Stoltenberg has warned of the importance of preparing for a long-term war.
«There is no indication that President Putin has changed his overall objective of this war. This is to control Ukraine. They have mobilized many new troops. Many of them are already trained,» he has remonstrated.
«This is not over. Wars are unpredictable, but we have to prepare for the long term and also for new Russian offensives. We must not underestimate Russia,» the NATO secretary general added.
In this sense, he defended his thesis that «nothing will be the same as before» in terms of the relationship between the countries of the European Union and Russia.
«The end of the war cannot mean a total return to normality. The type of relations with Russia in the future will depend on Russia’s behavior,» he said days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested the possibility of economic cooperation between Germany and Russia if the war is ended.
«I think it’s hard to imagine that we will again become so dependent on critical strategic raw materials such as energy. Because dependence on Russia has created attack points that Russia is now trying to use to prevent us from supporting Ukraine. Dependence on gas has made us vulnerable,» Stoltenberg told DPA.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
