Ukraine’s allied countries must now let kyiv strike Russian territory with the weapons they provide, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared this Thursday, May 30 in Prague, shortly before the start of a meeting ministerial meeting of the Atlantic Alliance in the Czech Republic.
3 mins
The foreign ministers of theNATO are gathered, this Thursday May 30 and Friday May 31, in Prague, in central Europe. At the top of concerns: the military situation which is deteriorating in Ukraineand the pressing requests for armament made by Volodymyr Zelensky. The central question this week: whether or not to authorize kyiv to use the weapons provided to it to strike Russian territory. Germany is against it, the United States and Italy too, but several European heavyweights spoke out this week in favor of giving Ukraine this freedom. MM. Macron and Borrell, for example.
Listen againWar in Ukraine: sending Western weapons to target Russian territory is debated
The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, joins them. According to him also, the war has changed its appearance, the real fighting is no longer only in Ukraine and the countries which have imposed restrictions should now lift them. “ In recent weeks and months, most of the heavy fighting has taken place along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Kharkiv region. We see that the Russians can be on the Russian side of the border, which is more or less the front line “, he said this Thursday from the Czech Republic.
They can be there with their artillery, their missile launchers, their planes, and their ammunition and fuel depots, and be safer than they would have been if they had been attacked with the most common weapons. advances that Ukraine has received. So I think the time has come to revisit some of these restrictions to allow Ukrainians to actually defend themselves. The right to self-defense also includes the ability to strike legitimate military targets outside Ukraine. Military targets, for example, on the border of Russian territory, which launch attacks against Ukrainian forces.
Also this Thursday, the head of Czech diplomacy, Jan Lipavsky, also declared that his country, host of the meeting of the politico-military organization, had “not no problem with Ukraine defending itself against the aggressor, including attacks which necessarily must take place on Russian soil “. His Norwegian counterpart, Espen Barth Eide, also said he was in favor. “ Otherwise, he believes, we impose on Ukraine a limit which makes victory more difficult “. France intends to raise this subject during this meeting, in the hope of changing the minds of the most reluctant countries.
Read alsoIn Germany, Emmanuel Macron opens the door to Ukrainian strikes in Russia
While Russia attacks Ukraine from bases located on its soil, the debate on the use or not on the territory of the Russian Federation of some of the weapons supplied to kyiv by the West, in this case long-range missiles scope, agitates the countries of the Alliance.
As for the Kremlin, it accused NATO this Thursday of “ to provoke » its Ukrainian neighbor to extend what constitutes in its eyes “ a senseless war “. On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin warned the countries concerned that there would inevitably be “ serious consequences » if it occurred to them to grant kyiv such a green light.
To rereadUkraine: Putin warns “states with a small territory and a very dense population”