BRUSSELS — NATO won’t lead the Western alliance in seeking tougher sanctions against Russia for its war on Ukraine, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Kyiv Post on May 25.
Instead, Stoltenberg said, the 28-nation military alliance will follow the course set by the European Union and the United States.
“It’s for the E.U. and the U.S. to decide on economic sanctions,” Stoltenberg said. “Twenty-two of the E.U. members and the United States are members of NATO…we speak of almost the same group of countries. I support the sanctions. I think the sanctions are extremely important as a reaction to the illegal annexation of Crimea and the lack of implementation of Minsk agreements. I leave it to the E.U. and the United States to make the specific decisions on sanctions.”
Stoltenberg’s response to the Kyiv Post came at a morning press conference ahead of a three-hour dinner meeting on May 25 among all 28 heads of state that form the NATO alliance.
All heads of state will show up, but most attention is focused on U.S. President Donald J. Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May and recently elected French President Emmanuel Macron. The event is being covered by 1,700 journalists around the world.
The agenda will focus on two topics.
One discussion is increasing the alliance’s fight against terrorism, an especially timely topic given the May 22 bombing in Manchester, England, that killed 22 concertgoers.
The other topic is increasing defense spending of alliance members to 2 percent of gross domestic product. Currently, only five nations meet or exceed the target – the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, Estonia and Poland. But Stoltenberg said that Romania, Latvia and Lithuania will soon join the 2 percent club, leaving 20 member nations to catch up.
Together, NATO allies spend nearly $1 trillion yearly on defense, mostly by the United States. Under Trump, the U.S. is seeking an increase to $639 billion in 2018, a more than $50 billion increase.
Trump on May 24 reaffirmed his support for sanctions against Russia until the Kremlin ends its war against Ukraine and withdraws from the country, including Crimea.
According to a White House readout of Trump’s meeting in Rome with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Trump “reaffirmed transatlantic unity in holding Russia accountable for its actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and noted the importance of convincing Russia to fulfill its commitments under the Minsk Agreements.”
But as a CNBC journalist pointed out to Stoltenberg, “Russia isn’t directly on the agenda, why is that?”
The secretary general replied that “Russia is on NATO’S agenda always and Russia will be discussed during the meeting later on today. One of the reasons why we are investing more in our collective defense and why we are increasing our military presence in the eastern part of the alliance is, of course, as response to Russia’s aggressive actions we’ve seen in Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg described NATO’s longstanding policy with Russia as one of dialogue combined with “credible defense and deterrence.”
