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New NATO Secretary General Reveals Alliance Strategy on Ukraine
NATO's new secretary general says Ukraine must continue to fight Russia until it can negotiate peace from a position of strength, and vows to keep supplying Kyiv with weapons. Russia condemns military aid to Ukraine
NATO's strategy towards Ukraine is to allow NATO to continue fighting and, once a decision has been made, to begin negotiations with Russia "from a position of strength," the military bloc's new Secretary General Mark Rutte said at a press conference in Brussels.
"NATO is here to help Ukraine win the war, not lose it. <...> We cannot allow President Putin to colonize Ukraine. That means massive military support to ensure that Ukraine is able to fight Russia," Rutte said.
At the same time, the NATO Secretary General noted that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky one day decides to start peace talks with Russia, this will only be possible from a “strong position.”
Ukraine and Russia held talks in the spring of 2022, shortly after the start of the Russian military operation. The Istanbul Round proved to be the most effective. The parties developed a draft and preliminary agreement on permanent neutrality and security guarantees for Ukraine, but the talks were stopped.
After that, the positions of both sides regarding the conditions for starting dialogue became more complicated. Ukraine believes that ending the conflict is only possible on the basis of Zelensky's "peace formula", which also implies the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 borders and the payment of reparations. Moscow rules out such a possibility.
Last June, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the terms of a ceasefire. Among them were the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, recognition of these four regions and Crimea as Russian territory, Ukraine's refusal to join NATO, and the lifting of Moscow's sanctions. Putin later ruled out the possibility of negotiations with his Ukrainian counterpart while fighting in the Kursk region continues. Moscow calls the supply of military aid to Kyiv a signal of Western intervention in the conflict.