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By Jon Jackson
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- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning for more war, not peace, in Ukraine.
- NATO countries have been urged to provide more military aid in Ukraine's war with Russia.
- NATO countries have already provided tanks and rocket artillery, while Poland and Slovakia said they would send Ukraine MiG-29 fighter jets.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning for peace but rather for "more war" in Ukraine.
Stoltenberg made the statement in an interview published Wednesday in The Guardian, where he discussed his belief that Putin is locked in "a war of attrition."
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Throughout the course of the war, NATO has urged member nations to continue providing Ukraine with needed supplies. Recently, Stoltenberg said that NATO countries should not worry about the alliance's requirements on ammunition stocks and instead focus on aiding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's forces.
Earlier this week, Ukraine received a boost when the European Union announced it will deliver 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition to the country within the next 12 months. Even so, Stoltenberg told The Guardian he hopes NATO will continue to provide Ukraine with more supplies in an effort to thwart Putin's military plans.
"The need will continue to be there because this is a war of attrition," he said. "President Putin doesn't plan for peace, he's planning for more war."
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To maintain his forces' attacks on Ukraine, Putin has ordered Russia to increase military industrial production while also "reaching out to authoritarian regimes like Iran or North Korea and others to try to get more weapons," Stoltenberg said,
Given that Ukraine is expending thousands of rounds of artillery shells a day, the secretary-general conceded that the "current rate of ammunition expenditure is higher than the current production rate." However, he said that new production contracts should address this need.
Stoltenberg praised NATO members who have given Ukraine military equipment like tanks and rocket artillery, saying such contributions have allowed Zelensky's troops "to retake territory to liberate more and more and more land" that Putin's forces had occupied in the early days of the invasion, which was launched last February.
On the topic of sending Western jets to Ukraine, Stoltenberg told The Guardian, "We should continue to address the need for more capabilities."
Poland and Slovakia announced earlier this month that they would give Ukraine MiG-29 fighter jets. Stoltenberg said other NATO members could soon provide more jets to Zelensky. He also hinted that President Joe Biden could reverse course after saying that U.S.-made F-16 "Fighting Falcons" were not on the table for Ukraine.
According to Stoltenberg, "There has not been made any decisions on F-16s."
Newsweek reached out by email to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
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