Stoltenberg advocates allowing Ukraine to strike at enemy targets on Russian territory
Denying Ukraine the ability to use weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes defence very difficult, he stressed
In an interview with The Economist, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on the alliance's member states that supply Ukraine with weapons to lift restrictions on their use for strikes against military targets in Russia.
"It is time for the allies to consider lifting some of the restrictions they have imposed on the use of weapons given to Ukraine," Stoltenberg said in the interview. "Especially now, with fierce fighting in Kharkiv, near the border, denying Ukraine the ability to use these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very difficult for Ukraine to defend its territory.
On 14 May, Stoltenberg's predecessor as NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called for allowing NATO countries in Eastern Europe to use ground-based air defence to destroy Russian missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles targeting Ukraine. Stoltenberg did not support this proposal. "We will not be a party to the conflict," he said. In his opinion, the West's task is the opposite – "to prevent this war from turning into a full-fledged war between Russia and NATO in Europe".
For Stoltenberg, allowing Ukraine to attack targets in Russia with Western weapons and NATO's direct involvement in the conflict are not the same, the Economist notes.
"We provide training, we provide weapons, we provide ammunition to Ukraine, but we will not be directly involved from NATO territory in combat operations over Ukraine or in Ukraine. This is a completely different thing," Stoltenberg said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regularly calls on Western partners to "show determination" and allow weapons to be used to strike at Russian territory.
According to him, the brutal Russian attack on Kharkiv on 23 May was made possible by a ban on Ukraine's strikes on Russian territory.
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