NATO partner countries should be ready to arm Ukraine if Russia continues to act to destabilize the situation in this country, said former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Photo: AP)

“If Russia continues to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine, I think NATO partner countries should decide to supply defensive weapons to [Ukraine],” Rasmussen told GlobalPost. He emphasized that “NATO partners have an obligation to help Ukraine.”

In an interview with Newsweek in April, Rasmussen suggested that modern Russia poses a greater threat to the world than the USSR. “Even in Soviet times, they did not dare to talk about a nuclear conflict. Now we see: this is being openly discussed. In this regard, Russia today is more dangerous than the Soviet Union. The USSR was more predictable than the current leadership,” he said . According to the former NATO Secretary General, Russia behaves unpredictably in the conflict with the European Union and is trying to destabilize the countries of the union from within.

On May 26, US President Barack Obama, after a meeting with current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, announced the increasing aggressiveness of Russia’s position on the Ukrainian conflict. “We had an opportunity to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the increasingly aggressive stance that Russia has taken,” Obama said.

At the same time, Obama and Stoltenberg stated the need for all parties to the conflict in Donbass to adhere to the ceasefire agreement, which, according to them, is constantly being violated.

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Obama’s words, said that this “is not a new statement and the reaction to such statements has already been heard more than once.” “Therefore, we do not see the need for any reaction,” Peskov concluded.

The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin have repeatedly denied any accusations of Russian military involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

A week ago, NATO Commander-in-Chief Philip Breedlove said that during the conflict in Ukraine, Russia had deployed dual-use systems that could be used to use nuclear weapons.

"Many of the systems that the Russians use to deliver nuclear weapons are dual-use systems - they can use both conventional [conventional] and nuclear weapons - and some of these systems are deployed," the general said. He noted that there is no “direct evidence” of Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons, but emphasized that this situation does not mean that this was not done.

Former NATO Secretary General called for starting arms supplies to Ukraine