NATO chief: Allies' new air defense to reduce russia's threat in Ukraine's sky
Ukraine is already successfully responding to threats from the air, and help from allies will gradually compensate for old systems and increase protection, says NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
He stated this in an interview with the Conflict Zone program on Deutsche Welle.
Jens Stoltenberg said: "I think the weapons we are supplying now are of great importance. The Ukrainians have already succeeded by shooting down many russian missiles and drones. The situation will change in the future; now, the allies are stepping up the support."
The Secretary-General also added that the help provided by the West from the beginning played a significant role in russia never being able to establish dominance in the air over the territory of Ukraine, which affected the success of the entire campaign in general. "This happened, of course, primarily due to the skill of the Ukrainian military to use the old Soviet air defense equipment that they already had. NATO allies supplied them with ammunition for these systems and then began to provide new systems. The German system now demonstrates that Germany is supplying Ukraine with critical capabilities. Their importance will only grow in the future," Jens Stoltenberg noted.
He recalled the recent transfer of the advanced IRIS-T system by Germany and the promises of the US and some other allies regarding anti-aircraft systems and munitions after the last meeting of the Ramstein format.
Earlier, Stoltenberg stated that NATO would not allow putin to win the war he started against Ukraine and would provide assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces as long as necessary when journalists asked to predict how long russia's war against Ukraine might last at a press conference following a meeting with Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă.
He also reminded them that the war did not start in February of this year but much earlier— in 2014—when president putin illegally annexed Crimea and took control of the parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of Ukraine.
Also, when NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was on board the USS George H.W. Bush, the American aircraft carrier leading NATO's Neptune Strike exercises in the Mediterranean, he stated that the russian federation "must not use false pretexts for further escalation" of the war in Ukraine.
"russia now falsely claims Ukraine is preparing to use a radiological 'dirty bomb' on its own territory. NATO Allies reject this transparently false allegation," the NATO chief stressed.
