Saturday08 February 2025
smiua.net

WEF 2025 – Stoltenberg: "We made a mistake by not arming Ukraine from 2014 to 2022."

The former NATO Secretary General believes that it is "within reach" to end the war in Ukraine this year.
WEF 2025 – Столтенберг: «Мы ошиблись, не вооружая Украину с 2014 по 2022 годы».

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, stated that Russia's war against Ukraine could potentially come to an end this year if the costs for Russia become prohibitively high.

“It is entirely possible to end this war this year – not least because Russia will have to pay an excessively high price,” he said.

“Therefore, now is not the time to reduce pressure on Russia,” he emphasized.

“I believe that Putin has ambitions to control Ukraine and to create a puppet government in Kyiv. However, I think we can change his calculations if the price he has to pay to achieve this goal is too high. He may alter his calculations and actually be forced to sit down and negotiate a fair peace for Ukraine,” Stoltenberg noted.

“One reliable way to put an end to this war, which is not mainstream, is to actually provide strong and reliable security guarantees to Ukraine. And then the most transparent and best way is NATO membership.”

“The second-best solution is to arm Ukrainians to the teeth. Because if we did something wrong in 2014, it was that we did not arm Ukraine from 2014 to 2022,” Stoltenberg stressed.

Background. It is worth noting that the day before, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in Davos that if Ukraine is not given proper security guarantees, “Putin will return – and he will definitely come back with an army ten times larger than the 200,000 at the beginning of 2022, as it is already four times larger.”

To avoid such a scenario, he outlined the security guarantees that should be provided to Ukraine: NATO membership, the deployment of long-range weapons in Ukraine, and the stationing of military contingents from allied countries.

According to Zelensky, Putin's goal is the complete occupation of all post-Soviet countries.