NATO Must Ensure Conflict Doesn’t Spread Beyond Ukraine: Stoltenberg

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a press conference ahead of a two-day meeting of the alliance's defence ministers at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 15, 2022. (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that the transatlantic defense pact must ensure that the conflict in Ukraine doesn’t spill over into neighboring states, an outcome he warned would be more dangerous and destructive than the localized hostilities now roiling the country.

“We need to end this conflict, not expand it,” the NATO chief said in remarks during a March 8 joint press conference alongside Latvian President Egils Levits, in Riga, Latvia.

Key to achieving this objective, Stoltenberg said, is to bolster NATO’s eastern flank with additional forces as a deterrence to Russia.

“Therefore, we are increasing our presence, also in Latvia ... and the eastern part of our alliance, to make sure that Russia understands that we are here to protect and defend all allies, every inch of allied territory,” he said, referring to NATO’s Article 5 pledge, where an attack against one member country is considered an attack against all of them.

Russian officials have warned that direct involvement of any NATO country in the conflict in Ukraine would be considered an act of war, effectively drawing the other allies into the mix. NATO-allied countries have taken pains to make sure it sends a clear message to Moscow that it won’t send troops to Ukraine.

“We have no hostility toward the Russian people, and we have no desire to impugn a great nation and a world power,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a recent op-ed.

“This is not a NATO conflict, and it will not become one. No ally has sent combat troops to Ukraine,” he stressed.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he believed some Western leaders were angling for a war against Russia. He also said on Tuesday said that the goal of Russia’s military actions are to “stop any war that could take place on Ukrainian territory or that could start from there,” suggesting that if the war doesn’t go the Kremlin’s way, it could spill over into NATO countries.

Stoltenberg also said the conflict has driven around 2 million people in Ukraine from their homes, describing the humanitarian situation in the region as “Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since the Second World War.”

Local residents cross a destroyed bridge as they evacuate from their town in Irpin, near Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 7, 2022. (Jedrzej Nowicki/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via Reuters)

At least 47 civilians, including 29 children, have been killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began 13 days ago, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Human Rights Office. A further 861 people have been injured in the hostilities, bringing the total civilian casualty toll to 1,335, according to the agency, which added that the true figure is probably “considerably higher” but “intense hostilities” in parts of Ukraine make accurate tallying difficult.

Most of the civilian casualties, the U.N. noted, were from explosive weapons with a broad impact area, “including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”

U.S. and British defense officials have said that, as Russia’s incursion has stalled in parts of Ukraine, Russian forces have ramped up the use of long-range fire, like rocket and artillery strikes, against civilian infrastructure, leading to more civilian casualties.

Stoltenberg touched on this in his remarks, saying that there are “very credible reports” of civilians coming under fire as they attempt to evacuate from conflict zones.

“Targeting civilians is a war crime and it’s totally unacceptable,” he said, while calling for the establishment of humanitarian corridors that are “fully respected.”

Residential houses which were destroyed by shelling in Markhalivka, Ukraine, on March 5, 2022. (Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images)

Russia has denied targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a Monday briefing that it’s impossible to say whether Russian forces are deliberately targeting civilian areas or whether such strikes are “incidental versus intentional.” He added, however, that the end result in terms of human suffering is the same.

“The bottom line is, more civilians are being killed and wounded, more civilian infrastructure is being damaged or destroyed,” Kirby said. “And Mr. Putin still has a choice here, not to escalate, not to be more aggressive in the use of these long-range fires and in his capabilities, but to find a diplomatic path forward and to end the invasion.”

Stoltenberg’s remarks came on the same day that Ukrainians boarded buses to flee the besieged eastern city of Sumy, the first evacuation from a Ukrainian city through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russia. Prior efforts to evacuate via corridors fell apart, with Ukrainian and Russian sides blaming each other for ceasefire violations.

“The suffering we now see in Ukraine is horrific—it affects us all,” Stoltenberg said.

“We have a responsibility to ensure the conflict does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine. That would be even more dangerous, destructive, and even more deadly. The situation could spiral out of control,” he added.

Accordingly, the NATO chief said, it’s necessary to bolster the eastern flank of the alliance “to make sure there is no room for miscalculation in Moscow.”

“We have 130 jets at high alert, over 200 ships from the high north to the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” Stoltenberg said, adding that allies including Canada and the United States were sending troops to assist with the effort.

U.S. soldiers walk in Poland near the border with Ukraine on March 3, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)

Latvia, along with neighbors Estonia and Lithuania, commonly referred to as the Baltic states, were once part of the Soviet Union and joined NATO in 2004.

Estonia and Latvia, in particular, have significant Russian-speaking minority populations, and there are concerns that Russia could leverage this in its pressure campaigns, much as it has in other former Soviet republics, such as Georgia, and now Ukraine.

Russia considers NATO’s presence on its doorstep a major security threat. One of the Kremlin’s key conditions for ending hostilities in Ukraine is for the country to pledge never to join NATO and enshrine neutrality in its constitution.

“Russia considers the independence of the Baltic states and their active role in NATO and the EU as threats to Russia’s security, sovereignty, and autonomy,” Mark Galeotti, a senior fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague and previously head of its Center for European Security Studies, wrote in an analysis.

“That the Baltic states are under constant Russian pressure is undeniable, from official denunciations to unofficial disinformation and from overt shows of military strength to covert intelligence operations,” Galeotti added.

Stoltenberg’s visit to Latvia follows a visit on March 7 to neighboring Lithuania by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said NATO is also considering additional permanent bases in the Baltics, which have been rattled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fear they may be next in line.