Stoltenberg after meeting with Biden: “The war could be long-lasting”

Photo: AP Photo / Evan Vucci

Western countries must prepare for a long-lasting war of attrition in Ukraine, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said after a meeting with US President Joe Biden on Thursday.

In a meeting with the press in Washington, Stoltenberg said that the conflict had already developed into a war of attrition.

“The Ukrainians pay a high price for defending their country on the battlefield. But we also see that Russia has big losses,” he added.

Stoltenberg reiterated that NATO does not want a direct confrontation with Russia. At the same time, he stressed that the Alliance has a responsibility to help Ukraine.

At some point, the war will probably end at the negotiating table, according to Stoltenberg. 

“It is not up to us to decide or have strong opinions about what Ukraine should accept or not accept,” Stoltenberg said when he was asked whether the West is trying to pressure Ukraine to accept the loss of territories in order to negotiate a peaceful solution.

He said he is optimistic about possible solutions for transporting grain out of Ukraine, also by ship. He did not want to specifically comment on whether NATO is considering escorting ships carrying Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea.

Source : © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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3 Comments on "Stoltenberg after meeting with Biden: “The war could be long-lasting”"

  1. Just no. We Americans and Europeans seem eager for it to be a long-lasting war, but the Ukrainians and Russians cannot continue sustaining and suffering that … and there is the ongoing danger of this blowing up into a nuclear world war, since we ourselves are at war against Russia via Ukraine.
    Some days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov (officially) stated the West is waging Total War against Russia, and Jens blithely ignoring/denying this only heightens the danger to us.

    There have been parallel articles in the West and in Russia about whether one side or the other is starting to waiver. Here is my comment under Washington Post’s article today “Putin thinks West will blink first in war of attrition, Russian elites say:
    The Kremlin is seeking to ramp up economic pressure to erode foreign support for Ukraine”

    WAIT a minute. I thought WE were (supposedly) doing “economic warfare.” ??
    Biden&Blinken’s Ukraine War’s inflation was “driven home” to Americans on their way to family get-togethers (and inevitable family political discussions) over our Memorial Day weekend, where we can assume Joe Biden was cursed beyond polite description.
    I think Democrats are absolutely doomed in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections … as is us continuing any more support for this terrible, entirely unnecessary war after those.
    So a treaty as soon as possible would be very wise … for the Democrats’ sake, let alone Ukrainians’ … let alone the American People’s, to avoid this blowing up, which it could do at any given moment.

    Meanwhile, Russia Today is – coincidentally – in parallel? – running this article, “As sanctions fail and Russia advances, Western media changes its tune on Ukraine:
    Western media outlets, once cheerleaders for Kiev, are increasingly warning sanctions are failing and Ukraine needs to make peace” … listing all the media now including Guardian raising questions about Biden&Blinken’s war destroying the Western economy.
    But what is disturbing is the conclusion of the article, where the Serbian-American author … who would thus best historically know … writes, “Instead, the US continues to give Ukraine a blank check, of the kind Germany offered to Austria-Hungary in 1914.” … as does Britain, let alone Russia-hating Poland and our other Western neocon states.

    And our civil defense? ??
    ***

    Native Earthling has an insightful comment there as as well:

    “President Biden took some sensible steps this week in defining the West’s goals for the war in Ukraine…”

    The next time someone tries to tell you this war isn’t being run from the Pentagon – have them read that sentence.

    The Americans knew NATO expansion could very likely lead to this war – and pursued it anyway.

    When this is over – Russia will control the Donbas (in one way or another) – they will remain in Crimea (forever) – and Ukraine will not become a NATO member – ever.

    So – how did the US provoking this war serve Ukraine?

    And if you doubt that the Americans provoked this (which does not excuse it – but does explain it) – argue with this guy:

    “Sitting at the embassy in Moscow in the mid-nineties, it seemed to me that NATO expansion was premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst.”

    William Burns – current Director of the CIA

    Obviously – he was right.
    ***
    And again, I like and (so far) trust William Burns.

  2. Vernon Childers | 4. June 2022 at 17:14 | Reply

    Good comments! The readers need to read War is a Racket. https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

    And by the way, I don’t believe much of the so-called news coming out of Ukraine or Russia. It’s to their advantage to make themselves look good. I remember Vietnam very well. I knew the press was lying because their lips were moving. And by the way, we got involved because if Vietnam fell there would be a domino effect with other nations falling to communism. We see how that worked out.

    All of these individuals who are for all of this foolishness need to be given a rifle and sent to the front and let them fight it out. There is nothing glamorous about combat. It’s ugly and good people die. Let the politicians take up arms and see how that works.

    It’s not over till it’s over and no one, including no one knows how this is going to turn out.

  3. Thank you for the compliment, Vernon, and I fully agree with you about the West’s various chickenhawk and warpig politicians and media people who want (others to die in) this war of theirs. You would think Norway’s warpigs would have learned – have enough blood on their hands – from Libya.

    However, we’ll have to disagree about South Viet Nam. It was an Asian window to the West. Saigon was The Paris of the Orient and had more freedom than the communist North from which many Vietnamese had fled to the South’s sanctuary.
    Remember our martyred President Kennedy’s pledge for us to go anywhere in the world to defend freedom in his Inaugural Address? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwM6s55no6U

    I was a plebe/freshman *bracing* in West Point’s Cadet Dining Hall in August 1964 when the Officer of the Day came on the microphone and announced NVnse torpedoboats had attacked our destroyers in The Tonkin Gulf, and “The President will speak to the Nation.” There was of course great excitement, but even though the youngest at table I knew my parents’ World War 2 generation would choose Johnson’s “guns and butter” over the mobilization necessary to fight such a jungle war against steeled communists … and that we would be defeated. And then I got to watch it happen and high school and Academy friends go off and too many die … in the war and afterwards because of it.
    And I reasoned that if Agent Orange would kill simple organisms like plants, it would destructively contaminate more complex organisms – humans – like it still does the South Vietnamese and our Vietnam veterans. (Remember thalidomide?)
    We should have carried the war north to where it was coming from, and if the Chinese had entered, we could have taken Hainan island in return.
    After I resigned from the Academy after 1 semester, I later volunteered for the draft in early 1966 (when KIAs had become in the 100s per month) because I felt I owed my 2 years and equal share of risk to the others of my generation, but was greatly relieved when I was shipped to USArEur in West Germany, instead of RVN.
    In 1997, my column “Vietnam was not a class war” was published in my hometown Rock Island Argus newspaper, utterly debunking (after/with research) our Congressman cruelly, wrongfully claiming the war was mostly fought by – most of the dead were – poor and/or minority.
    https://qconline.com/editorials/vietnam-wasn-t-a-class-war/article_4f681662-dc89-5118-af78-2c340913863d.html
    I’ve written comments under the entries of Tim Bauer (https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/2898/CARL-T-BAUER/) and “Coach” Dickey (https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/13237/CHARLES-C-DICKEY-JR/).
    However, there is a strong case that we did delay the domino effect and enable counter-moves like what is depicted so suspensefully for Indonesia in the Mel Gibson/Sigourney Weaver film The Year of Living Dangerously.

    In 1997, I sent my WW2 (veteran) generation parents and friends into shock, when I wrote that if the World War 1 generation and botched the political leadership and strategic planning like the WW2 generation botched Vietnam, there would have been no VE Day or VJ Day.
    Still, you would think that Jens Stoltenberg, who protested the war (albeit as a kid) and had the blood on his hands of Vietnamese and Cambodians exterminated by the various communists after we pulled out, would have opposed our wrongful neocon attack on – invasion of – Libya.
    (At the time of the report, *this* was laughable. Gaddafi must have later regretted releasing the SAS and MI6 infiltration/destabilization team his Libyan militia *farmers* captured. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8365007/Libya-inside-the-SAS-operation-that-went-wrong.html )

    Regarding Biden&Blinken’s entirely unnecessary Ukraine War, there seem to finally be questions being raised on both sides now – especially after Henry (Kissinger) urged territorial concession on the Ukrainians – so there may be hope of stopping this lemming insanity in time.
    And when Congress goes home for Campaign 2022, they’re going to get sharply cold buckets of reality thrown on them by war-inflation wracked Americans.
    We are SICK of these neocon wars – our military community has long been exhausted and now here are chickenhawk Biden&Blinken over-deploying them even more and more dangerously into Poland – and this one could indeed be a holocaust for everyone.

    Again, civil defense/sivilforsvars?? … if they’re going to put us and our families in so much danger?

    Anyway, thanks again for your compliment and very encouraging support in this, Vernon.

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