United States He reported it last Tuesday. Russia is moving some troops away from kyiv, probably to prioritize elsewhere. And this Thursday confirmed the OTAN. Despite announcements by the Government of Vladimir Putin, Russia is not withdrawing its troops from the outskirts of Kiev but by repositioning and regrouping them with the aim of launching new attacks, as the Atlantic Alliance has warned. “We have heard Russia’s recent statements that it will reduce its military operations around kyiv and in northern Ukraine but Russia has repeatedly lied about its intentions and we can only judge Russia by its actions, not by its words,” he said. Thursday the secretary general, Jens Stoltenbergduring the presentation of the 2021 annual report on NATO activities.
“According to our intelligence, the Russian units are not withdrawing, but repositioning. Russia is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas region.” At the same time, Russia maintains the pressure “on kyiv and other cities” so the Atlantic Alliance believes there may be “additional offensive actions that they bring even more suffering”, warned the Norwegian, whose mandate expired this year but has been extended by the allied leaders during the last extraordinary summit held last week until the end of September 2023, precisely because of the war in Ukraine, which has “dramatically worsened” the security situation on the European continent.
no actual change
“President Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is shocking but not a surprise. NATO has already repeatedly warned that Russia was prepared to launch a full invasion of Ukraine. We did everything possible to start a dialogue with Russia but Moscow repeatedly rejected it and decided to cut diplomatic ties”, Stoltenberg has condemned. Despite the Kremlin’s declarations about a alleged partial withdrawalthat the allied headquarters do not believe, and the talks between kyiv and Moscow In Turkey, NATO has so far seen neither “a real change in the Russian objective”, which remains a “military” solution to the conflict, nor the will on the part of the Kremlin to find a political solution.
“What we see is a continued military invasion, the continued bombing of cities, the repositioning of troops, probably to reinforce (their position) in Donbas. We need to judge Russia by its actions and not by its words and it remains to be seen if they have a real will on the Russian side to find a political solution”, said the Norwegian politician, urging the Vladimir Putin regime to end a “meaningless” war. ”, to withdraw its troops from the country and to engage in “good faith” talks.
2% of GDP target
During his appearance, Stoltenberg also celebrated the commitment of the 30 allied countries to comply as soon as possible with the objective, assumed in 2014, of raising at least 2% of PIB defense spending. “We are facing a new security reality and there is a new sense of urgency,” she insisted. An urgency that many countries have understood, as reflected in the conclusions of the extraordinary summit of allied leaders held last week. “We have seen national announcements of significant increases and the acquisition of cutting-edge capabilities. And allies will present additional plans on how to meet the defense investment commitment in time for the June Madrid Summit”, explained Stoltenberg.
Among the countries that have announced an acceleration of investments is, for example Germany which has announced a spending of 50,000 million this year and a special fund of 100,000 million for the next few years that will allow Berlin to reach the goal. Spain has also confirmed its intention. Also the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchez, has announced its intention to increase this spending. At the moment, the figures published this Thursday confirm that 2021 was the seventh consecutive year of growth in defense spending with an increase in real terms of 3.1%, which means an additional 270,000 million dollars since 2014.
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According to the figures published this Thursday, there are 8 allied countries that exceeded the 2% objective in 2021: Greece (3,59%), United States (3,57%), Poland (2,34%), United Kingdom (2,25%), Croatia (2,16%), Estonia (2.16%) and Lithuania (2.03%). However, there are countries that are close to the minimum threshold set as an objective at the Edinburgh summit. It is the case of France (1,93%), Romania (1,88%), Norway (1.74%) or la slovak republic (1.73%). They are still at the bottom in military spending Luxembourg (0.54%), Spain (1.03%) and Belgium (1.07%). All of them, however, have registered a significant increase.
In addition to allocating 2% of GDP to defense, the allied commitment also establishes that a 20% of the expense must be destined for purchase of military equipmentsomething that 22 of the 30 allies do, including Spain which allocated 22.7% in 2021. Last year, however, the countries that dedicated the highest percentage were Greece (38.8%), Luxembourg (38.2%), Hungary (37.2%), Poland (33%), Turkey (30.7% ), Croatia (30.5%) and the United States (29.4%).