MUNICH: Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is Saturday expected to tell a major security forum in Germany that allies must provide Ukraine what it needs to defeat Russia, as Kyiv pleads for more weapons.
“We must give Ukraine what they need to win and prevail as a sovereign, independent nation in Europe,” he will tell the Munich Security Conference, according to excerpts of his speech seen by AFP.
His comments to world leaders will come ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia sending its troops into Ukraine, bringing war to Europe for the first time in decades and upending the global security landscape.
Allies, led by the United States, have sent billions of dollars of armaments to Kyiv, from artillery to air defence systems, but Ukraine says it needs more to launch a successful counter-offensive.
Stoltenberg will back Kyiv’s calls, telling the conference “we must sustain and step up our support for Ukraine.
“Putin is not planning for peace. He is planning for more war.”
Opening the conference Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged allies to speed up their support, while European powers pledged to intensify their backing.
Stoltenberg will also warn that Russia’s invasion has exposed the dangers of Europe’s over-reliance on authoritarian regimes and should serve as a lesson.
“We should not make the same mistake with China and other authoritarian regimes,” he will warn.
The Ukraine war has stoked fears among Western powers that China could try something similar in Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
The three-day security conference is being attended by dozens of senior figures, including the leaders of Germany and France, US Vice President Kamala Harris, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen told a security forum that allies must “double down” on military support for Ukraine, as it fights back against Russian forces.
“We have to double down and we have to continue the really massive support that is necessary (so) that these imperialistic plans of (President Vladimir) Putin will completely fail,” she told the Munich Security Conference.
President Joe Biden will be “messaging” Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin when he speaks in Warsaw next week, while hailing Nato’s unprecedented effort to help Ukrainians save their country as the war reaches the one-year mark.
The White House says Biden will give the speech in Poland—a key US ally and fulcrum of vast efforts to arm Ukraine and receive refugees—on Tuesday.
That’s the same day Putin is set to give his own speech in Moscow, three days from the February 24th anniversary of Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine.
Biden will be commemorating the partnership between Nato countries and what was to many an unexpectedly well-organised Ukrainian military, which has not only repelled Russian forces from the capital but recaptured swaths of territory.
Biden will touch down in Warsaw on Tuesday and meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda. On Wednesday he meets with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of Nato members in eastern Europe—Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
In addition, he will speak by phone next week with the leaders of Britain, France and Italy, the White House said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due in Washington on March 3.
