Russia-Ukraine war could run a year: NATO chief

Special Desk

In what could be said as a prediction of the situation between Russia and Ukraine, the two countries at war since over 100-days now, the NATO secretary general.

‘The West must prepare to continue supporting Ukraine in a war lasting for years,’ NATO secretary general said in a media interview.
“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” Jens Stoltenberg, said. “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” he pointed.

Soon British prime minister, Boris Johnson, echoed Stoltenberg’s comments. “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war,” he said, adding that it was necessary “to enlist time on Ukraine’s side”.The war has already crossed 100-days and Ukraine has seen a lot of damage including buildings, offices, broadcast stations, manufacturing units and commercial establishments. Stoltenberg said the costs of war were high, but the price of letting Moscow achieve its military goals was even greater.

Both Stoltenberg and Johnson said sending more weapons would make a victory for Ukraine more likely. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” the Nato chief said.

“Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.” The Western military alliance chief said that supplying Ukraine with more modern weapons would increase its chances of being able to liberate the country’s eastern Donbas region, much of which is currently under Russian control.

For the last few months Russian and Ukrainian forces have battled for control of territory in the country’s east – with Moscow making slow advances in recent weeks.

Ukrainian officials have spoken bluntly in recent days about the need to boost the supply of heavy weapons to the country if Russian forces there are to be defeated. Country’s Defence Minister, Oleksiy Resnikov, met some 50 countries in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels to ask for more arms and ammunition.

The country’s Western allies have so far offered it major weapons supplies but Ukraine says it has only received a fraction of what it needs to defend itself and is asking for heavier arms.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has made his first trip to the country’s war-torn southern front. He visited the hold-out city of Mykolaiv and the port of Odesa, both of which have been targeted in Russian efforts to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.