Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has claimed that a Russian victory in the Ukraine conflict is the biggest risk the US-led military bloc faces and urged member states to bolster aid to Kiev.
Speaking at the NATO leaders summit on Tuesday in Washington, Stoltenberg claimed that the conflict between Moscow and Kiev would shape the global security system for the decades to come.
“The biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine; we cannot let that happen,” Stoltenberg stated, in a speech marking the military bloc’s 75th anniversary.
According to him, a Russian victory would “embolden” other opponents of the military bloc, including Iran, North Korea, and China, who support Moscow and “want NATO to fail.”
While casting the stakes of the Ukraine conflict in historic terms, Stoltenberg, however, chose not to mention Kiev’s prospects of joining NATO.
Ukraine maintains that its fight with Russia gives it the right to fast-track accession to the bloc. But NATO’s leadership and its member states have insisted that the country will not join while hostilities with Russia continue.
Moscow has named Ukraine’s moves to join NATO as one of the key reasons for the start of the conflict in 2022.
Addressing the NATO summit, US President Joe Biden said that Washington and other bloc members intend to provide Kiev with “dozens” of additional tactical air-defense missile systems in the coming months.
The US, Germany, and Romania will donate a new Patriot battery each, while the Netherlands “and other partners” will supply components to “enable the operation of an additional Patriot battery,” according to a statement signed by several NATO members and Ukraine. Italy has pledged to deliver an additional SAMP-T system.
Russia has maintained that the deliveries of Western weapons will lead to more escalation, but will ultimately fail to stop the Russian military from achieving its aims in the conflict.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would pay “maximum attention” to whatever decisions are announced at the NATO summit.
He reiterated that the bloc, which has repeatedly declared its intent to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield, “is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of Ukraine.”