NATO ‘will not back down’ from supporting Ukraine, says alliance chief
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)
NATO will not reduce its support for Ukraine, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference on Friday.
“Most wars end with negotiations,” Stoltenberg said, ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest, Romania, in late November.
“But what happens at the negotiating table depends on what happens on the battlefield. Therefore, the best way to increase the chances of a peaceful solution is to support Ukraine,” he added.
“So NATO will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. We will not back down,” Stoltenberg said.
Increased “non-lethal support“: Stoltenberg said foreign ministers are providing “unprecedented military support” and hopes they will agree to increase “non-lethal support” at the Bucharest meeting.
According to Stoltenberg, NATO has been delivering fuel, medical supplies, winter gear and drone inhibitors.
Stoltenberg thanked the allies for their contributions and said that at the Bucharest meeting he will ask for a larger contribution to help Ukraine move from Soviet-era equipment to modern NATO standards, as well as to support military training.
He said decisions regarding sending US-made Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine are “national decisions” by individual countries, when asked regarding Warsaw’s request that Germany send Patriot units to Ukraine instead of Poland. Germany’s offer to Poland followed the deadly missile attack on Polish territory near the Ukrainian border on November 15.
Stoltenberg said that in the past, with the advanced NASAMS air defense system, training was carried out in NATO allied countries by NATO personnel. However, no NATO personnel have carried out work inside Ukraine, as this would mean that NATO was a party to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“There are ways to ensure that [Ucrania] can operate modern advanced systems without deploying NATO personnel inside Ukraine. But … the specific decisions regarding the concrete systems are national decisions,” he said.
He added that sometimes end-user agreements, and other arrangements, imply the need to consult with other allies, but ultimately the decision must be made by national governments.
