NATO will continue to support Ukraine, put pressure on Putin to stop war - Stoltenberg

11.03.2022 19:31

Ukrinform

NATO Allies will continue to provide comprehensive assistance to Ukraine in exercising its right to self-defense and will exert coordinated pressure on Putin's regime, including through economic sanctions, so as to make him stop aggression against Ukraine and return to diplomacy.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"We have stepped up, so NATO Allies are now providing more support, both military support and humanitarian support, and fiscal support, financial support. And then of course, we are imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russia. And all this is actually crippling the Russian economy. So the combination of concrete support and sanctions on Russia puts heavy pressure on President Putin and increases the reasons he will have to at some stage sit down and engage in good faith in the diplomatic effort," Stoltenberg said.

He noted that these sanctions are costly for the whole world, including for those countries which are imposing sanctions. But at the same time, the world has to react when it sees Russia is blatantly violating international law, invading in a brutal way an independent sovereign country: Ukraine.

"Every war has to end at the negotiating table. The question is how long we have to wait for that. And therefore with the pressure on Russia, both by the sanctions, but also by providing support to Ukraine – they are on the front line, they are paying by far the highest price. But NATO Allies and other countries all over the world are helping them, supporting them, including with military support," Stoltenberg said.

He recalled that NATO and some Allies have been supporting Ukraine for many years since 2014 with equipment, but not least. Over this period, many Allies have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian forces, and this proves extremely important now because so many of these troops are on the frontlines fighting invading Russian forces, he said.

"It is of course first and foremost the courage of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian leadership that has stopped and slowed down the Russian invasion, but the support that NATO Allies have provided with training and equipment since 2014 has proven to be extremely important in support for those efforts," Stoltenberg said.