Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister, stepped down as the head of NATO last week after 10 years in the position, leaving behind a raging proxy war and a shattered Ukraine that has no chance of regaining its lost territory.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Stoltenberg said his only regret was that NATO didn’t provide Ukraine with more weapons before Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
“If there’s anything I, in a way, regret and see much more clearly now is that we should have provided Ukraine with much more military support much earlier,” Stoltenberg said. “I think we all have to admit, we should have given them more weapons pre-invasion.”
Russia’s primary motive for launching the invasion was NATO’s support for Ukraine and the country’s potential future membership in the alliance, a fact Stoltenberg acknowledged last year.
In the years leading up to the invasion, the US and NATO slowly increased military aid to Ukraine while being aware of the potentially catastrophic consequences. “Sending lethal weapons was a big discussion. Most allies were against that, pre-invasion . . . they were very afraid of the consequences,” Stoltenberg said.
The US first provided Ukraine with “lethal aid” under the Trump administration by sending Javelin anti-tank missiles.
“I’m proud of what we have done, but it would have been a great advantage if it started earlier. It maybe could even have prevented the invasion, or at least made it much harder for [Russia] to do what they’ve done,” Stoltenberg added.
Stoltenberg also bragged about crossing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s red lines despite the risk of nuclear escalation. “I pushed for crossing all those so-called red lines that Putin has put up. And we have crossed many of them, and he hasn’t done anything,” he said.
“The reality is that if President Putin wants to escalate with the use of weapons of mass destruction, he can create all the excuses he needs. So far, we have called his bluff,” Stoltenberg added.
Putin recently issued his clearest warning to NATO yet by ordering changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine that lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which came in response to the alliance considering supporting long-range strikes in Russian territory.
