The military alliance assures that it supports Ukraine because it has no other choice, writes ‘s NATO special reporter Maria Stenroos.
Maria Stenroos NATO special reporter
Time after time, NATO meetings end with declarations of unwavering support for Ukraine.
Even today, although there is uncertainty in the air.
Uncertainty is fueled both by the situation at the front and by the contradictory messages of some countries.
Ukraine’s 1200 km the front line has practically remained in place for a year. The country diligently prepared for a counter-attack and for that purpose collected a lot of military aid from the West. However, it did not produce the outcome that Ukraine and the West hoped for.
It seems difficult to get back the territories conquered by Russia.
Slovakia and Poland cut themselves off from arms aid in the fall. In both countries, it was part of the populist election campaign.
In the United States, support for Ukraine became a weapon of Trump’s policy. No one knows what will happen to support after the presidential election is a year away.
Still, the West vows to continue the support.
gathered in Brussels The foreign ministers of the NATO countries chose their words carefully. According to them, the war in Ukraine is still a heroic story.
They didn’t say out loud that the counterattack had failed. They said it would be slow and time-consuming because Russia has had time to dig its defenses deep into the conquered land.
Instead NATO ministers praised Ukraine’s previous success.
According to NATO, it is already a victory that Ukraine is still on the map.
The country has also managed to keep open the route to the Black Sea and fought heroically against Russia. Ukraine has managed to fight back half of the area that was briefly occupied by Russia.
Russia’s losses, on the other hand, were said to be multiple times compared to Ukraine’s losses.
NATO repeats time and time again the message of Ukraine’s success and Russia’s failure. This is how it should be done as a Western military alliance. Real analyzes of the successes and failures of the war and future scenarios do not end up in the public domain.
Right under the NATO meeting the German newspaper Bild and the British Telegraph published a news story in which it was claimed that Germany and the United States were pressuring Ukraine into peace talks by rationing their arms aid.
There seems to be no confirmation of the news, and diplomatic sources in NATO say they do not recognize such a discussion.
However, the news caused a stir and it was disputed with objections.
German and American ministers vehemently defended Ukraine. They reminded that Ukraine is fighting for European peace and international order. Putin’s attack on an independent country cannot remain without consequences.
The Secretary General of NATO mentioned in every speech that Germany has recently promised Ukraine an additional aid of eight billion.
Concern about the situation in Ukraine still exists. There is a consensus in the West that Russia must not win the war. But what would be enough for Ukraine to win – would Ukraine be a winner without Crimea or Donbas? What kind of peace would prevail on these borders?
According to NATO, it is up to Ukraine to decide when it thinks it is time to negotiate peace. If the support were to decrease, the alternatives would become scarce.
However, these issues were not discussed at the NATO meeting. The war continues for the time being, and so does Western support.