NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, recalling the decision to continue support to Ukraine at the NATO Leaders Summit held in Vilnius, said: "Our support has helped the Ukrainians go on the counter-offensive. The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground and this proves the importance of our support, our ability and willingness to continue our support because this is a heavy war, a difficult war, but they have managed to break through the defence lines of the Russian forces and they are advancing. The main message at the NATO Summit was, of course, to support Ukraine. We also managed to make progress towards Ukraine's NATO membership."
"PUTIN MADE TWO BIG MISTAKES"
Stoltenberg stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin made two major mistakes and said, "President Putin made two major strategic mistakes when he invaded Ukraine last year. The first and most important one was, of course, that he completely underestimated the Ukrainian people. The strength, determination and courage of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian political leadership and the Ukrainian armed forces. The other big strategic mistake he made was that he underestimated us. Our willingness, our determination to support Ukraine, to stand by Ukraine with economic sanctions, with political support, but most importantly with military support."
"FACED WITH MORE NATO PRESENCE"
Stating that Putin entered the war to prevent NATO from approaching its eastern borders, Stoltenberg recalled Finland's accession to the Alliance and Sweden's imminent accession, "He entered the war to prevent NATO from approaching its borders. It achieved the opposite. He got more NATO presence in the eastern part of the Alliance and he also saw that Finland joined NATO and Sweden will soon become a full member. Because at the Vilnius Summit we agreed on a declaration in which it was made clear how Sweden will do more, how it will follow up on the agreement we made in Madrid on counter-terrorism, how it will deal with the export of military equipment, and then Turkey has made it clear that it will ratify Sweden's accession as soon as possible."
