Status: 01/18/2023 8:34 p.m
According to NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, at the meeting of western Ukraine supporters in Ramstein on Friday, things will be nailed down: Then the delivery of “heavier and more modern weapons” will be announced. What that means exactly, he left open.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine will receive heavier weapons to fight Russia.
From the meeting of the Ukraine contact group at the Ramstein US base in Rhineland-Palatinate on Friday, the message will go out that there will be “more ongoing support, heavier weapons and more modern weapons,” said Stoltenberg at the World Economic Summit in Davos.
It is a fight for one’s own values and democracy. However, Stoltenberg left it open whether there would be any announcements about the delivery of “Leopard 2” tanks. It is also conceivable that the Norwegian was alluding to the fact that Great Britain wants to provide Ukraine with 14 “Challenger 2” type battle tanks.
Arms deliveries as a “path to peace”
Stoltenberg pointed out that it would also be very dangerous for NATO if Putin won this war. Then other authoritarian rulers got the message that brute force would get them what they wanted. “It makes the world more dangerous and we more vulnerable.”
In this case, arms deliveries are the way to peace. The only way to a peace deal is to convince Putin that he cannot win on the battlefield.
Discussion about “Leopard” tanks
Most recently, the discussion among the western partners focused primarily on the German “Leopard 2” type battle tanks. So far, Scholz has blocked the delivery of the tanks, arguing that Germany shouldn’t go it alone. The Chancellor did not comment on this in his speech in Davos.
In the meantime, however, Poland and other EU and NATO countries want to supply their own “Leopard” tanks to the Ukraine and are pushing for the necessary approval from the manufacturing country Germany.
Selenskyj calls for faster arms deliveries
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again called on the West to speed up arms deliveries. “Supplying Ukraine with air defense systems must be faster than Russia’s huge missile attacks. The supply of Western tanks must forestall another invasion of Russian tanks,” Zelenskyy demanded in a video speech in Davos.
The world must make faster decisions when it comes to challenges, such as climate change, hunger or global security. “Tragedies leave life behind. Tyranny is faster than democracy,” he criticized.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine almost eleven months ago, it took the world several days to decide on the first sanctions. “The time that the free world needs to think is used by a terrorist state to kill.”