Finnish President Alexander Stubbe told CNBC on Tuesday that Ukraine has already won the war with Russia, but warned that Kiev still urgently needs more air defense support from its NATO allies.
Mr. Stubb stressed that despite more than four years of full-scale aggression by Moscow, Ukraine has managed to maintain its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“Let’s look at things from Moscow’s perspective. In the last four years of the war, they advanced 60 kilometers. In World War II, they advanced 1,400 kilometers from Moscow to Berlin. You have to ask yourself, ‘Who won and who lost?’ I say Ukraine won,” Stubb said Tuesday at a NATO summit in Ancana, Turkey.
“My message is, yes, Europe needs to strengthen, but you know, Ukraine needs NATO and NATO needs Ukraine just as much as the other way around,” he added.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson struck a similar tone earlier in the day.
“It’s clear that Russia is not winning the war with Ukraine at the moment. Ukraine has been a remarkable success,” Kristersson said. “Russia has not been able to manage this war at all as originally expected.”
The Nordic leaders’ comments came as NATO allies gathered in the Turkish capital for a summit centered on the future of Ukraine, the Russian threat to Europe, and the scale and speed with which European countries can reduce their dependence on the United States.
This comes a year after NATO leaders pledged to increase defense spending from 2% of GDP to 5% of GDP by 2035, following years of pressure from Washington and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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