June 20, 2022
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“We have to be prepared that it could take years,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) warned that the West must be prepared to support Ukraine in the war in the years to come.
Jens Stoltenberg, the body’s secretarygeneral, said the cost of the war was high, but the price of allowing Moscow to achieve its military goals was even higher.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also warned of a longterm conflict.
And in a stern warning, the newly appointed head of the British Army said Britain and its allies must be able to win a land war with Russia.
General Patrick Sanders, who took office last week, said the following in an internal message accessed by the BBC:
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscores our primary objective to protect the UK and stand ready to fight and win wars on land and reiterates the call to stop Russian aggression by threatening the use of force. “
Stoltenberg and Johnson also said sending more weapons would make Ukraine’s victory more likely.
“We have to be prepared for the fact that it can take years. We cannot give up support for Ukraine,” said the NATO chief in an interview with the German newspaper Bild.
“Even if the costs are high, not only for military support but also for rising energy and food prices.”
The head of the western military alliance said supplying Ukraine with more modern weapons would increase its chances of liberating the Donbass region, much of which is currently under Russian control.
In recent months, Russian and Ukrainian forces have been battling for control of territory in the east of the country with Moscow making slow progress in recent weeks.
In an article published in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, Boris Johnson accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of resorting to a “campaign of exhaustion” and “out of sheer brutality trying to destroy Ukraine”.
“I fear we must prepare for a long war,” he wrote.
“Time is running out. It all depends on whether Ukraine can bolster its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its offensive capability.”
The prime minister, who visited Ukraine’s capital on Friday, said the delivery of arms, equipment, ammunition and training to Kyiv must outpace Moscow’s rearmament efforts.
Ukrainian officials have spoken openly in recent days about the need to increase the country’s supply of heavy weapons if the goal is to defeat Russian forces.
On Wednesday, the country’s defense minister, Oleksiy Resnikov, met with about 50 countries of the Contact Group on Ukraine’s Defense in Brussels to call for more weapons and ammunition.
So far, the country’s western allies have offered large arms shipments, but Ukraine says it has received only a fraction of what it needs for defense and is demanding heavier weapons.
Russian officials often criticize NATO’s military support to Ukraine, and in an interview with the BBC, the country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cited the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western alliance as the reason for the earlier invasion.
“We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that drawing Ukraine into NATO was a criminal act,” Lavrov told the BBC.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and while it has expressed a desire to join the organization, there is no timetable for doing so.
About the…
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