Due to the Russian invasion, the alliance countries will continue to support Ukraine militarily and at the same time increase their defense budgets, the NATO chief added.
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Russia announced on Tuesday that it would significantly reduce its military activities around Kiev and also Chernihiv in the north of the country. The command of the Ukrainian army then stated that it had recorded the withdrawal of some troops from the Kiev and Chernihiv regions towards Belarus, but there was no mass departure. Kyiv and its Western allies fear that Russia’s target may be a decisive offensive in eastern Ukraine.
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“Russia is trying to regroup, replenish and strengthen its offensive in the Donbas area. At the same time keeps under pressure Kyiv and other cities. So we can expect more attacks that will bring even more suffering, “Stoltenberg told reporters at the presentation of the Alliance’s annual report for 2021.
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Russia’s aggression has forced the Allies to work even harder to meet their previous commitment of two percent of GDP on defense.
Jens Stoltenberg
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According to the head of the Alliance, the defense spending of European members of NATO and Canada increased for the seventh year in a row, rising by 3.1 percent in real terms. Stoltenberg appreciated that all member countries, which should reach the previously set share of two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the coming years, have signed up to further increase their military budgets.
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“Russia’s aggression has forced the Allies to work even harder to meet their previous commitment,” Stoltenberg said, referring to the 2% threshold agreed by the Alliance in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
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In recent years, many NATO nations have been reluctant to accept the commitment due to the effects of the coronavirus crisis, and their defense spending has grown more slowly than needed to reach two percent by the promised 2024. According to the annual report, eight out of 30 – Greece, the United States, Poland, Britain, Croatia and the three Baltic States. France, Romania, Norway, Slovakia and Hungary began to approach him.
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Among the ten countries whose expenditures did not reach even 1.5 percent of GDP, in addition to Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, there was also the Czechia, which, according to statistics estimated by the Alliance, spent 1.4 percent of GDP on defense. However, Prague, like Berlin, began to talk about a significant increase in money for the army in response to the Russian attack.
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