Stoltenberg predicts Moscow will launch a “bigger offensive” next spring
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the West has turned to the attacked country by sending millions of dollars in military aid. Weapons, tanks, air defense systems… Everything you need to fight the attacker. But there was a condition. Do not use the material in Russian country. Outrage boiled over after Kiev hit Russian territory with drones for the third time in two days. After the triple attack, the United States and NATO wanted to increase their distance and distance themselves from the incidents, reminding Volodimir Zelensky’s government of the red lines.
North American Foreign Minister Antony Blinken assured that his government’s goal, with the cooperation of European allies, is to provide Ukrainians “the equipment they need to defend themselves, to defend their territory defend, to defend their freedom.” Not to strike back at Russian citizens. In this sense, he wanted to clarify the position of the Biden administration. “We did not encourage or allow the Ukrainians to attack inside Russia,” he argued emphatically.
However, Blinken stressed that “the most important thing is to understand what Ukrainians are experiencing every day with the ongoing Russian aggression against their country.” Will it somehow prevent Kiev from making full use of its long-range arsenal? “The short answer is no. We are not going to do that at all,” said US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, according to the BBC.
Putin has repeatedly warned the American giant and its European allies not to cross the “red lines” by supplying Kiev with long-range weapons. Biden, for his part, publicly indicated that he does not support equipping Zelensky’s military with this type of missile, fearing an escalation that could pit the United States directly against Russia. And the same situation is happening in Europe. No one wants another global war conflict.
NATO also wanted to distance itself from drone attacks on Russian airfields in the Ryazan and Saratov regions on Monday and in Kursk the following day. The Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said in an interview at the Financial Times Global Boardroom event on Wednesday that he had “no further information on those specific incidents.”
However, the head of the Atlantic Alliance wanted to focus on Kiev’s priority objective: defending itself. “And we need to see this in a broader context. We see daily attacks by Russia on Ukrainian cities, on critical infrastructure,” he explained. With this, Putin is “trying to deprive citizens of water, electricity and heating as winter sets in now. And this is a kind of ruthless war that actually affects all citizens and shows the ferocity of the Russian invasion. And of course Ukraine has the right to defend itself against this kind of attack,” he claimed.
In this sense, Stoltenberg stated that Moscow intends to “freeze this war, at least for a short period of time, so that it can regroup, recover and recover, and launch a larger offensive next spring.” That is why the NATO chief urged the Allies to send more weapons to Kiev. “There are no preconditions for a diplomatic solution now. The more we want it, the more urgently we need to provide military support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Putin has shown no signs of wanting a peaceful end to the war.
The American magazine ‘Time’ on Wednesday named the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, as the most relevant personality of the year. “It’s the most obvious decision I can remember,” said the publication’s director, Edward Felsenthal, who sees Zelensky as a symbol not only of his country, but of the whole world. “For demonstrating that courage can be as contagious as fear, for encouraging people and countries to unite in defense of freedom, for reminding the world of the fragility of democracy and peace, Volodimir Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine’s Person of the Year for ‘Time'”.
Source: La Verdad
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