A military response to Russia by the West is increasingly ruled out. “Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and there will be no presence of troops” of the alliance on Ukrainian soil in this crisis, the minister announced Margaret Oaks this Friday afternoon in Moncloa, as the Foreign Minister already did, Jose Manuel Albares. The Minister of Defense has appeared before the media without questions to report on the meeting of heads of state and government of NATO member countries, which has been joined by a representative from Finland and another from Sweden, countries threatened by the new Russian expansion strategy.
At that meeting, he said, “we have highlighted that this aggression carried out by Russia is absolutely unacceptable”, and furthermore “the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine has been demanded, at the same time that the most absolutely to the people of Ukraine”.
In his appearance, Robles has mixed the most restrictive sentence to “Putin’s intolerable aggression” and the most emphatic support for Ukraine with a much less emphatic announcement of a response to the invasion: “Sanctions will continue in the event that this violation of Ukraine’s territory continues” he said, and in another passage of his speech he warned: “What Vladimir Putin know that in no case will the EU and NATO accept this violation of international law.” Until then.
But his speech did contain words of warning about the use of force in the event that a NATO state is attacked. Margarita Robles wanted to “make it clear” that “any aggression against one of the countries of the Atlantic alliance will lead to the consequent response from NATO” by activating article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which obliges all members to come to the defense of the attacked .
Support for Ukraine
Paraphrasing the Prime Minister, Pedro SanchezRobles has assured that the military actions of Spain at the request of NATO -360 soldiers under the command of a Canadian general in Latvia and 120 with four fighters patrolling Bulgaria- are “in defense of peace and the values of coexistence”. For the minister, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “an attack on peace, everyone’s peace.”
Margarita Robles has made an effort to convey warmth to the Ukrainian Government and people, expressing in her speech “the total and absolute support of Spain for Ukraine”, and solemnly emphasizing: “The pain of Ukraine is the pain of Spain”.
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After calling Russia’s “aggression” “intolerable and unacceptable”, which “violates all the principles of international law”, the Minister of Defense has described the Western condemnation as “unanimous”, in which “Spain is in the lead”.
In her appearance at the Moncloa Palace, the Defense Minister underlined the unity of the European Union and NATO in the face of “Putin’s intolerable aggression”. In fact, the president of the European Commission also had a seat at the meeting of the NATO countries, Ursula Von der Leyenand that of the European Council, Charles Michael. “That image of unity is the best strength that we can demonstrate in democratic societies -Robles said- in the sphere of Europe and also in the sphere of the United States and Canada”.