NATO could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent a Russian invasion in 2022, the general said Secretary of the North Atlantic Treaty Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ (FAC), quoted by Reuters.
When asked what was the worst day of the 10-year period he was in charge of NATO, Stoltenberg said it was February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Then he specified that Moscow's war against Kiev did not start in 2022, but in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.
"If Ukraine were stronger militarily, Russia's caution before attacking would be greater. There's no telling if it would have been enough. On my first visit to Ukraine in 2015, I visited the training center there. The US, Canada and Britain trained soldiers there, we as NATO did not. In general, our training and equipment was quite limited. We could have done a lot more,”, states the Secretary General of the alliance.
As the best in his career at the top post in the alliance, Stoltenberg points to the time when Finland and Sweden joined NATO.
He noted the reluctance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to provide weapons that Kiev had requested before Russia's full-scale invasion because of fears that tensions with Russia would escalate.
"Now we are arming Ukraine for war, then we could have been arming Ukraine to prevent war,”, Stoltenberg pointed out.
Since the start of the war, non-NATO Kiev has received one weapon system after another from its allies after initial hesitation, Reuters notes.
Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, will step down in October from his NATO post, which he has held since 2014. In June, it was announced that former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte would be the next head of the pact.
In the interview, Stoltenberg stated that the end of the war in Ukraine will only be put on the negotiating table.
"I still believe in dialogue with Russia combined with protection and deterrence. We must be strong in order to have a meaningful dialogue. Of course, there is much less room for that, almost none, compared to 2014. One of my first big projects as Secretary General was to get the NATO-Russia Council going, which had not been in session for a long time. One thing is clear: in order to end this war, at a certain point there must be a dialogue with Russia again. But this should be based on Ukrainian strength”, Stoltenberg notes in the interview.
He declined to confirm that after he leaves his post at NATO, he will take over the chairmanship of the Munich Security Conference from German diplomat Christoph Heusgen. Stoltenberg told the FAC that there are “many possibilities” and would like to settle in Oslo.