BRUSSELS: The alliance’s commander, Jens Stoltenberg, told that NATO must be ready for a long standoff with Russia beyond the current crisis brought on by President Vladimir Putin’s year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow’s campaign against its pro-Western neighbour has thrown Europe into its most serious crisis since World War II and compelled NATO to undergo its most extensive defence upgrade since the fall of the Soviet Union.
A week before the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, Stoltenberg, 63, stated in an interview that “President Putin wants a different Europe, wants a Europe where he can dominate neighbours and where he can dictate what countries can do.”
We need to be ready for long haul because this might go on for a very, very, very long time.
The Norwegian leader of the US-led coalition stated that because change can occur unexpectedly, he was hesitant to estimate how long the current standoff between Russia and the West would go.
He stated, “We witnessed 9/11 or the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“With the current behaviour of the Russian regime, the dictatorship in Moscow, there’s no way,” he said, adding that NATO would “always look into where there are potential to again come into the scenario where there is room for a better relationship.”
Some Western leaders worry that a direct military fight may turn into a nuclear war between the West and Russia even though NATO countries have not dispatched their own forces to Ukraine.
Russian tanks led to more NATO soldiers stationed on eastern border, boosted military budgets of European allies.
Members of NATO, led by the United States, have also provided Ukraine with weapons worth tens of billions of dollars to aid in its defence against Russia.