AA/Brussels
The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, declared that the Atlantic Alliance “will never recognize the annexation of Ukrainian regions by Russia.
This emerged from a press conference held on Friday by Stoltenberg at NATO headquarters in the Belgian capital, Brussels, during which he condemned Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian regions.
Stoltenberg stressed that this operation is “illegal”, indicating that it is “the biggest attempt at forced annexation on European soil since the Second World War”. And the head of NATO added that Russia “seized territory by force, using arms”.
“Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, all these areas are Ukraine (areas annexed by Russia), just like Crimea is Ukrainian (annexed by Russia in 2014),” he added.
“Russia takes control by force and for the second time in a row, of Ukrainian lands (the first time was Crimea), and this is the most serious escalation since the beginning of the war”, he said. he warned.
The Secretary General of NATO considered that the annexation by Russia of the four Ukrainian regions “results more from a position of weakness than of strength”.
“This demonstrates that the war is not going as planned and that Putin has completely failed to achieve his strategic goals,” he added.
“Putin’s goal is to prevent us from supporting Ukraine, but he will not succeed in that,” he said, stressing that providing support to Ukraine is necessary to preserve its security and that of the NATO allies.
The head of NATO, in this same context, described Putin’s speech on the possibility of using nuclear weapons as “dangerous and reckless”.
“We are watching closely what Russia is doing and we have made it very clear to Russia that there will be serious consequences if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine,” he insisted.
On Friday Putin formalized Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, a move that has drawn rejection and condemnation from Western countries.
Vladimir Putin said in his speech at the annexation document signing ceremony in the Kremlin that “the citizens of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia have chosen to join Russia, and it is their right”.
The Russian president stressed that Moscow is ready to resume negotiations with kyiv, but will not cancel the results of the “annexation referendums” of the four oblasts.
Regarding Ukraine’s membership in NATO in the context of tensions with Russia, Stoltenberg said that kyiv has the right to apply for membership in the military entity of its choice.
He stressed that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is a decision that must be approved “unanimously” by the 30 member countries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday that his country will formally request accelerated membership of NATO.
*Translated from Arabic by Hajer Cherni
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