The bloc should disregard Russia’s potential response to proposed long-range strikes using Western weapons, Denmark’s PM says
Public discussion on how far NATO countries should go to defeat Russia in the Ukraine conflict are playing into Moscow’s hands, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has argued, while calling for a no-holds-barred policy.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is set to meet US President Joe Biden this week to present his “victory plan.” Kiev is lobbying Washington to permit long-range strikes using donated Western weapons, deep inside Russia, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said would amount to an act of war by the US-led military bloc.
Frederiksen, a staunch supporter of Kiev, told Bloomberg TV that such permission should be granted regardless of how Moscow might react.
“The most important red line has been crossed already. And that was when the Russians entered Ukraine,” she told the channel on Friday. “So I will not accept this premise, and I will never allow anyone from Russia to decide what is the right thing to do in NATO, in Europe or in Ukraine.”
“There have been constant discussions about – are we allowed to give this?,” Frederiksen noted, while criticizing Western indecisiveness regarding military assistance. “I think that the restrictions on the use of weapons should be lifted.”
“My suggestion is, let us end the discussion about red lines,” she urged. “It has been a mistake during this war to have a public discussion about red lines,” as that is “simply giving the Russians too good a card in their hands.”
Moscow has avoided specifics when describing its reaction to potential strikes, while Russian officials have claimed that such authorization has already been given behind closed doors. One possibility floated by Putin would be to provide similar Russian military capabilities to enemies of the West, who would then be free to use them.
The Russian government considers the Ukraine conflict to be a US-initiated proxy war and an existential threat to the country, which according to Russia’s military doctrine could warrant the use of nuclear weapons.
Denmark, which joined NATO in 1949 as a founding member, is now part of the so-called ‘F-16 coalition’, working to provide US-made fighter jets to Ukraine and to train its pilots. The Frederiksen government has not banned Ukraine from attacking Russian territory using aircraft donated by Copenhagen, unlike another bloc member, Belgium.
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