Russia could attack other countries if Vladimir Putin’s offensive in Ukraine is successful, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Thursday.
“If Russia wins this war Putin will have confirmation that violence works. Then other neighbouring countries may be next,” Stoltenberg said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since 24 February.
The NATO Secretary-General stressed the importance of supporting Ukraine in an address at a summer camp for the youth of the Norwegian Labour Party, held on the island of Utøya, near Oslo. “A world where Putin gets his way by using military force is also a more dangerous world for us,” he noted.
Ukraine is preparing for a counter-offensive in the south of the country, Stoltenberg continued, describing the current state of the conflict as a “brutal and bloody war of attrition”.
The NATO Secretary General also warned Norway of the increased threat posed by Russia to the Atlantic Alliance, given the war in Ukraine, near Norway’s eastern borders.
A former Norwegian Prime Minister (2000-2001, 2005-2013), Mr. Stoltenberg also chaired the Labour Youth League, the youth organization affiliated with the Norwegian Labour Party, and attended its summer camp in Utøya.
In 2011, Norwegian neo-Nazi mass killer Anders Behring Breivik carried out a massacre at the camp after setting off a car bomb in Oslo in a double terror attack that left 77 people dead.
