NATO is laying important groundwork for a dangerous escalation in the Ukraine conflict: Secretary General Stoltenberg announced that the Western military alliance would continue to support Ukraine in the fight against Russia with arms deliveries and a supply of heavy weapons.
In this case, Russian President Putin announced that the transporting trains would become the target of Russian military strikes as soon as they reached Ukrainian territory.
Immediately after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, the Kremlin chief had pointed out several times that any outside interference would result in massive Russian reactions and on a scale “unlike you have experienced before in your history”.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg remains deaf to these warnings. He took a further step in the direction of escalation on Wednesday when, at the start of a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, he promised Sweden and Finland an accelerated admission procedure if they applied to join NATO.
So far, the two countries have been neutral. Above all, Finland joining NATO would be problematic because the country borders directly on Russia. The prospect of Ukraine joining NATO and the stationing of Western military equipment, including nuclear missiles, was one of the main reasons for the Russian military action in the neighboring country.
Stoltenberg also promised that the EU would deploy a permanent full-scale military force on the eastern flank to deter Russia. In an interview published by The Telegraph he said that the “new reality” in Europe should be acknowledged.
“We have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a more longer-term adaptation of NATO,” at the bloc’s summit in Madrid, Spain in June.
Stoltenberg said the 40 000 troops “under direct command” of NATO, were mostly massed in Eastern Europe while individual member states were supplying Kiev with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems, tanks and armored fighting vehicles even as Moscow has repeatedly stated that NATO’s expansion eastward was a threat to its security.