The military bloc wants Ukrainian President Zelensky to continue the conflict with Russia, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said
Fighting Russia with Western aid is the only way forward for Ukraine, NATO members have told President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
“We make it very clear that this war can only be won on the battlefield and we should continue to support President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people as much as possible in order to win the war on the battlefield,” he told reporters on the sidelines. of the NATO Summit in Madrid, on Wednesday.
He said he had the chance to personally interact with and encourage Zelensky, pointing out that his country was among the first to offer military support to Kyiv and will continue to send weapons to Kyiv, he assured.
“NATO support in the broadest sense has been there from the beginning and will continue to be there,” he added.
NATO members have been training Ukrainian troops since the armed coup in Kyiv in 2014. When Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine more than four months ago, the military bloc’s expansion to the east was cited as a major cause. Moscow perceives NATO as a hostile organization and a threat to its national security.
The Belgian Prime Minister also said that Ukraine received a strong gesture of support from the EU, when it was offered candidate status last week. He said that Brussels also sent “a very important message” about the EU’s enlargement to Moldova, which also became a candidate.
“Some people will say, ‘Well, that’s symbolic.’ But symbolic messages are extremely important today,” De Croo said, referring to the fact that EU countries expect neither Ukraine nor Moldova to join them. full members sometime soon.
The Belgian Prime Minister praised the ongoing NATO summit as a success, due to Turkey raising its objections to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance, which was announced on Tuesday.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the Donetsk and Lugansk regions special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, mediated by Germany and France, were not signed until 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since acknowledged that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass Republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kyiv insists that the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
(RT.com)