Samya Kullab, KYIV Ukraine
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visited Ukraine on Thursday for the first time since Russia invaded more than a year ago, a highly symbolic trip that underscores the alliance’s commitment to helping Kyiv defend itself.
The Kremlin quickly warned
that Ukraine must not be allowed to join NATO. Russia has given various and
shifting justifications for going to war, but it has repeatedly pointed to the
expansion of the military alliance toward its borders in recent years,
including citing fears that Kyiv would be admitted.
Images published in local
media showed Stoltenberg apparently paying tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers
in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square.
The visit, just two days
after Russian
President Vladimir Putin himself went to Ukraine, holds important
symbolism, but its exact purpose wasn’t immediately clear.
NATO has no official presence
in Ukraine, but Stoltenberg has been the strong voice of the alliance
throughout the war. He has been instrumental in garnering and coordinating
support — including weapons, ammunition and training for Ukraine’s embattled
troops — from the 31 countries that make up the organization.
NATO itself only provides
nonlethal support — generators, medical equipment, tents, military uniforms and
other supplies — to the government in Kyiv.
A procession of international
leaders has made the journey to Kyiv over the last year and the former
Norwegian prime minister is one of the last major Western figures to do so.
NATO, formed to counter the
Soviet Union, has long feared being dragged into a wide war with nuclear-armed
Russia, but as the West has moved from hesitantly providing helmets and
uniforms to tanks, warplanes and advanced missile systems, high-level visits
have become routine.Ukrainian soldiers fire howitzer D-30 at the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
Stoltenberg had been to Kyiv
before the war, but this is his first visit during the hostilities. NATO
leaders said in 2008 that Ukraine would join the alliance one day, and
Stoltenberg has repeated that promise throughout the course of the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO remains one of the goals
of what Moscow calls its “special military operation.” Speaking in a conference
call Thursday with reporters, Peskov said that Ukraine’s accession would pose a
“serious, significant threat to our country, to our country’s security.”
Earlier this month,
Finland joined
the alliance, setting aside decades of neutrality in a historic realignment
of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape. While NATO says it poses no
threat to Russia, the Nordic country’s accession dealt a major political blow
to Putin.
Finland’s membership doubles
Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Neighboring Sweden
is expected to join in coming months, too, possibly by the time U.S. President
Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in
July.
The alliance has focused on
bolstering defenses on its own territory to dissuade Putin from attacking any
member country. Under NATO’s collective security guarantee, an attack on one
member country is considered to be an attack on them all.
On Friday, Stoltenberg will
attend a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, Germany,
with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It’s the main international forum for
drumming up military support for the conflict-ravaged country.
Denmark and the Netherlands
announced Thursday that they plan
to provide Ukraine with at least 14 refurbished German-made Leopard 2
battle tanks, starting in early 2024.
The announcement comes on top
of a previous pledge, by Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, to supply at
least 100 older Leopard 1 A5 tanks.
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