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Nato countries will be unable to plug the gap created by the US withholding military aid for Ukraine, the alliance’s secretary-general has warned.
“I welcome all efforts by Canada and European allies, but the most important single decision is a decision of the US to agree a package of support, because of the magnitude and the military capabilities [of the US],” said Jens Stoltenberg on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday.
“We are dependent on the US . . . it is vital.”
His remarks come amid mounting disquiet in Nato about the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency in the US and the Republican party’s veto against further aid to Kyiv, which they have tied to a dispute over Mexican border security.
The warning puts recent moves by European powers to try make up for absent US military support for Ukraine into stark perspective, and pours cold water on the notion that Europe can deter Russia alone.
For the past two days at the Munich Security Conference — an annual gathering of politicians, diplomats, military brass and intelligence chiefs — the faltering state of Ukraine’s military defence, and Putin’s apparent growing confidence, has dominated discussion.
The conference opened on Friday to news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in a Siberian prison. On Saturday news of Ukraine’s withdrawal from the critical eastern city of Avdiivka was announced.
Following the EU’s decision this month to deliver an additional €50bn in aid to Ukraine, attendees have discussed what steps European countries could take to offset the loss of US support.
“We should stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump,” said the outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte — who has been talked of as a possible successor to Stoltenberg.
“It’s up to the Americans. I’m not an American, I cannot vote in the US. We have to work with whoever is on the dance floor,” he added, praising European efforts to arm Ukraine and recent additional commitments.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose government signed a €1.1bn security package for Ukraine this week, said: “If we are credible here, [Vladimir] Putin will understand that there can be no dictated peace at Russia’s behest.”
Scholz said he had spent time in Munich “urgently campaigning” for other European capitals to boost military spending.
Appearing in person, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an impassioned appeal for more weapons.
He pointedly declined to answer a question on what message he had for US politicians opposing aid, indicating it would be undiplomatic to do so. But he did invite Trump to visit Ukraine and experience “real war”, adding that he would even take the Republican presidential frontrunner to the front lines if necessary.
“Keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war,” he said in his speech. “The self-weakening of democracy over time undermines our joint results.”
Republican politicians attending the conference faced more direct criticism from others.
“Europe is on fire,” Tobias Ellwood, the former chair of the UK parliamentary defence committee told US Senator Pete Ricketts, who sits on the Senate foreign relations committee. “We are absolutely baffled at how this is being tied to the Mexico border issue.”
Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas said that “6 per cent of our nation is Ukrainian refugees. In America that would be 20mn people.” She criticised what she said was a “what’s in it for us” attitude in Washington.
“History rhymes. We saw this already in the 1930s. American isolationism . . . not stopping the aggressor when we had the chance. And then seeing aggression spread all over the world.”
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