Secretary General press stake-out at the White House, following his meeting with the President

Secretary General 
Good afternoon. I just had a good meeting with President Biden, we discussed the upcoming NATO Summit here in Washington next month, where we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the most successful Alliance in history, NATO. But also where we take important decisions for the future. Not least on defense spending, and I shared with the president the new numbers we have, showing that this year, 23 allies will spend 2% of GDP or more on defense, which is twice as much as just four years ago and demonstrates that more and more Allies are now really stepping up and investing more in our security. We will also make important decisions on Ukraine. I expect NATO to take a lead role in providing security assistance and training and also that Allies will commit more military and financial support to Ukraine. So, I look forward to return to Washington to attend the NATO Summit and to celebrate NATO here in Washington DC next month.

Question: [inaudible] Package on Ukraine, what is it about, what do you expect?

Secretary General
Well, I expect that when the Heads of State and Government convened here in Washington next month, in actually a few weeks’ time, that we will agree that NATO will take on a lead role in providing security assistance and training. I expect that this will be led by a three-star general, it will be to provide the logistics, the support to set up the capabilities that Ukraine needs. It will most likely be located in Wiesbaden, Germany at the US facility there and it will be several 100 personnel to organize and facilitate the security assistance for Ukraine. This is important because it will provide more predictability, more accountability when it comes to our support to Ukraine. And it also reduces the burden on the United States. I welcome of course the decision by the US Congress to allocate 60 billion extra US dollars for Ukraine. But I also welcome the fact that actually European Allies and Canada are matching what the US is doing. And by giving NATO a bigger role, we will ensure that the burden of the United States is reduced and that we have more long-term support for Ukraine.

Question: Is there any concern that using the funding from Russia's funding as well as expanding into allowing weapons to go into the country is really concerned that that is pushing Russia to do things that they probably normally wouldn't do and what's our response to the request for peace from Russia itself?

Secretary General 
First of all, I welcome the decision by the G7 countries, the NATO Allies to use the demobilised Russian funds to finance a loan to Ukraine to help them to get more financial support from the West to ensure that they can stand up against the Russian aggression.
Second, I welcome the peace summit that took place in Switzerland over the weekend. This demonstrates there is broad in national support for Ukraine. But we also know that what happens around the negotiating table is inextricably linked to the situation on the battlefield. And as long as President Putin believes that they can win on the battlefield that they can wait us out, there will be no lasting peace in Ukraine. So if you want a peace in Ukraine, the best way of achieving that is to strengthen Ukraine, its military capabilities, so they can negotiate from a position of strength and ensure that Ukraine prevails and survive as a sovereign independent nation.

Question: [inaudible] Russia’s offer for peace?

Secretary General
Russia has not really put forward an offer. President Putin said that the precondition for a ceasefire is that Ukraine should give up even more land, to give up all the four provinces that Russia has annexed without controlling. So not only should Ukraine give up the land that Russia is controlling today, but Ukraine should also give up land that Russia is not controlling today. That was a precondition for a ceasefire. This is not a peace offer. This is a proposal that Russia should actually achieve its war aims by convincing Ukraine to give up its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Question: Secretary General, can you clarify your comments on the deployment of nuclear weapons, NATO nuclear weapons, and how would it not be perceived as an escalation by the Russians?

Secretary General
Well, NATO has had for decades a nuclear deterrence. That's nothing new, it's not new either that we are modernizing this nuclear deterrent. We are replacing old planes, aircraft, legacy aircraft, with a new fifth generation aircraft and the US is modernizing the weapons they have deployed. So this is nothing new. This is modernization on NATO's nuclear deterrent, which has been going on for some time, and we have been transparent about that and it has been communicated for many years.

Question: Bringing them out more?

Secretary General
No there are no plans to increase the number of weapons, what we are doing is that we are replacing the planes, the legacy planes with new fifth generation aircraft, and the US is modernizing the weapons. So, this is a modernization of the nuclear deterrent we have for many years. It's nothing new and it's something we have communicated over a long time.