NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that the Western military alliance is ready to back Ukraine in its war against Russia for years to come.
“We need to be prepared for the long term,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels. “There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years.”
Stoltenberg said that part of NATO’s plan for long-term support includes training Ukraine to use Western military equipment, as opposed to the Soviet-designed arms Ukrainian forces use now.
“NATO allies are preparing to provide support over a long period of time and also help Ukraine to transit, move from old Soviet-era equipment to more modern NATO-standard weapons and systems that will also require more training,” he said.
The US and its NATO allies have made it increasingly clear that they don’t think the war in Ukraine will be ending anytime soon. President Biden asked Congress for $33 billion in new aid for Ukraine on Thursday, including $20.4 billion for military aid, and said the massive package “begins the transition to longer-term security assistance.”
While pouring weapons into Ukraine and escalating sanctions on Russia, the US and most NATO members don’t appear to be interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to end the fighting. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the US’s top diplomat, hasn’t spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since February 15.
Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said some NATO member states want the war in Ukraine to last longer to hurt Russia. “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue,” Cavusoglu said. “They want Russia to become weaker.”
Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that one of Washington’s goals in Ukraine is to see a “weakened” Russia.
Ukrainians are cannon fodder for the war party. Why is Kiev refusing to implement UNSC 2202 and have peace ?
I expect when the last Russian is out of Ukraine you will have some measure of peace Right now nobody wants to talk. The Russians don’t want to admit they lost, the Ukrainians see victory ahead.
The 50,000 Ukrainians fighting alongside the 125,000 invited peacekeepers sure do see victory ahead
Because Amerikkka won’t let him, Vooch!
The pretense that sanctions are not an act of war seems to be coming to an end. Russia is changing reality on the ground and is now applying sanctions of its own. Poland and all of Europe knows it could have been far worse.
It’s time for serious negotiations. Send in the peacemakers, or start preparing for the next Stone Age.
Right, the famous nobody move or the N**** gets it negotiating strategy. Russia needs to leave.
John: It’s important for you to understand that AMERIKKKA does not want peace!
What a windfall for Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, plus a chance to weaken our “sworn enemy”.
NATO, NATO, nato… I read this business and I shake my head, almost in disbelief… What is it that you actually achieve, in any capacity?…
Cash flow from NATO nation public treasuries and no small amount of Slavic blood.
“Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the US’s top diplomat, hasn’t spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since February 15.”
Should he even be called a diplomat any longer?
Or should he EVER have been, Wars? 😐
His behavior at the US/China Summit, that the Chinese diplomats slammed, was the point at which no one should have taken his calls ever again. It’s only been downhill since. The career diplomats must be deeply embarrassed, but they have their paychecks and pensions to worry about, so they don’t say nothin’.
Joe Biden and Congress want years of war to steal from appropriated aid and NATO Administrator Stoltenberg wants years of war to gain more power and wealth for NATO. Zelensky want years of war so he can prance about the world stage and have world leaders grovel at his feet.
The war will be fought until the last Ukrainian is dead or has run away to another country. Russia will have a stronger economy decoupled from the worlds supply chain problems. Europe will suffer without energy from Russia bringing their economies near collapse. America will suffer hyperinflation and a depression. Zelensky will move to Hollywood to become a pop star before death due to a drug overdose.
The big winner Mainland China will rule the world as a Super Power.
Looks like obama and Biden will have destroyed America as we knew it!
The American empire has been in decline since shortly after World War Two solidified it.
The Russian empire (in the form of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and assorted satrapies) happened to mostly collapse first, and doesn’t look set to make much of a comeback in the near term.
China is unlikely to have any better luck trying to “rule the world as a Super Power” than the US or Russia did. It may enjoy some ascendancy, though.
China has a demographic problem as well, Nobody is going to like it when the state kills your one and only child on some hair brained ego boosting scheme. Their economic power is great.
Sure. Obama and Biden. Without those two we’d have peace on earth.
CT:
I am very much inclined to agree with you…
What might 33 Billion Dollars do for our country? We could use it!
33 Billion Bucks to sustain a pointless engagement is non-sensical…
33 billion to knock Russia back for the next 20 years is a bargain. Once the threat from Russia is reduced we can certainly save far more than 33 billion on our defense budget.
Then there’s China.
But imagine the savings after we get done knocking them back 20 years on the cheap? The “defense” budget will be minuscule.
There’s that delusional thinking again. You notice how much the “defense” budget went down after we left Afghanistan? And won’t the cry be for more to KEEP them down? Of course not. Right now the pentagon is racking it’s collective brain on ways to save the taxpayers money.
son, I appreciate your nativity about your dreamy live long and prosper future.
It is very dreamy. A wonderful Cistern hewed out of stone, a big one like your big leaps of mental ascent.
One problem is it leaks and it has stagnant water in it still so when you reach down for it, it will not deliver you the preservation of your soul.
Oh well.
“Broken cisterns that can hold no water” are belief systems that are failures and yours needs some maintenance.
it leaks.
Force will not make the world you want.
The NATO Confederacy is No confederacy to be frightened of, that’s the Truth. Russia is Not Gog.
NY Times even published that Russia pivoted EAST on the front page last Sunday Edition, At the top of the page.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%208%3A12%2CIsaiah%208%3A13&version=KJV
It is Written.
Donna, less homelessness. Better education. Less hunger.
Fewer bridges collapsing. Better roads. Who knows, maybe even less inflation.
How about helping the seniors in this country who struggle to live on their inadequate social security.
Or god forbid, healthcare for all!
Why are the instruments of death taking precedence over these things?!
As soon as the war is over and the Russians have left all of the mutually agreed-to area of Ukraine, NATO troops and military equipment will pour into Ukraine ending all pretense of Ukrainian independence.
I would find this very dispiriting, but I’m reasonably sure Russia is able to wrap it all up in a few months. Like all wars, this will find an end.
The only way Russia can wrap it up is to accept defeat. Every day they are turning more Ukrainians against them. Same thing happened to the USSR in Afghanistan and the US in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iraq.
They’re going to take control of the whole coast to have a land bridge to Transnistria, making Ukraine landlocked, then Russia will declare a ceasefire. If Ukraine keeps fighting, Russia will shell Kiev, and use bigger and bigger bombs till Kiev accepts peace.
US and USSR already did that in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Russia can conquer territory, but it will never be able to pacify any part of the Ukraine except perhaps Crimea. The reprisals the Russians will have to take to repress the resistance will only make the resistance stronger until the Russians accept defeat. This is why asymmetric wars of aggression end badly for the invader unless the indigenous regime is unpopular as was the case in East Pakistan when India invaded in 1971. But the Ukrainians are highly motivated and will eventually expel the Russians.
The base of support for Ukrainian nationalists is the north west of the country, which is also the most densely populated part. The south coast and the east of Ukraine have lots of Russian speakers and people of Russian descent.
So I agree that if Russia tries to occupy north western Ukraine, they’d suffer a devastating insurgency. But I suspect that’s not true of the south and east of Ukraine where a lot of the population would prefer to be in Russia.
Also note the success of Putin in pacifying Chechnya, which now provides fearsome fighters for Russia’s army.
Ethnic Russians are a minority everywhere in the Ukraine, including Donbas where they are less than 39% of the population. Most Russian speaking Ukrainians and many Ukrainian ethnic Russians identify with Ukraine.
The secessionists in Chechen were jihadist terrorists whose brutal tactics thoroughly alienated the populace. Rusisa’s tactics in the Ukraine are building the resistance and alienating Russian speakers and many ethnic Russians. Mariupol is a prime example. It was a Russian speaking city where the population witnessed their families and friends killed, their homes and livelihoods destroyed and their city leveled by the Russian army. Every advance of the Russian army builds the resistance that will ultimately prevail. Except for Crimea where the majority of people do want to be part of Russia.
Russians have been resented in the rest of Ukraine for centuries. Putin’s invasion has turned that resentment into a hatred that is building a resistance that in the long run will be much more trouble for Russia than the Ukrainian military. Ironically, the Russian invasion is only making the Nazis stronger. But Putin never really cared about de-Nazification, Putin’s problem was NATO in Ukraine, not Nazis in Ukraine. Equally ironically, Putin’s war is making NATO stronger and Russia weaker. A tragic and terrible miscalculation. There is no way out of Ukraine for Russia except to accept defeat.
Maybe, maybe not. Ukraine has been an economic disaster for the last 30 years. The last 8 years have been chaotic, astonishingly corrupt, and a huge contradiction of ultranationalist ideology juxtaposed with extreme Western liberalism. The largely Russian speaking populations of the south and east of Ukraine may welcome the stability Russia brings, especially if Russia stations a large enough army to crush opposition and ensure law and order is maintained, which happened in Chechnya but never in Iraq.
I would find this very dispiriting, but I’m reasonably sure Russia is able to wrap it all up in a few months. Like all wars, this will find an end.
They flipped back to a long war narrative again?
Zelenski was all charged up on short war resolve news a day before Germany hosted a big meet’n greet for ~ 40 nations that want to tear off a piece of this money maker and inventory cleaner.
And now there are S500’s?
Hypersonic interceptors.
fresh off the drawing board or under wraps all this time? ?
It’s in production and wayyyy past R& D.
It’s a hypersonic interceptor. Air to air, ground to air, etc.
This makes Ukraine a de facto NATO nation. It’s aiming at a long term war to wear down Russia and prepare Russia for regime change. Russia knows this scenario very well and won’t make it happen, meaning they will target bases in the West and may be even In America itself. Hypersonic unstoppable missiles even with non nuclear payloads could totally destroy seaports, airfields etc. causing enormous damage and waken up the American people to rise up against their warlords.