One of NATO’s top priorities is to supply Ukraine with anti-missile systems after Russia’s attacks last week showed a willingness by the Kremlin to target civilian targets deep in major cities.

“What Ukraine is asking for and what we think can be provided is an integrated air-missile-defense system,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “That doesn’t control all the airspace over Ukraine, but they’re designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect.”

Russia’s retaliatory strikes last week that were in response to the Crimea bridge bombing were seen as an escalation and Western countries said justified these new weapons. (See “NO, RUSSIA DID NOT INVADE CRIMEA,” “WHITE HOUSE GAVE PUBLIC GREEN LIGHT TO UKRAINE TO BOMB BRIDGE” and “PUTIN: UKRAINE’S CRIMEA BRIDGE ATTACK AN ‘ACT OF TERROR.”) 

The U.S. Defense Department said these strikes were against international laws of war because they targeted civilian infrastructure. Russia fired hundreds of rockets at these cities. 

Milley made the comment after last week’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels where anti-missile capabilities were discussed. France announced that it will provide some air defense batteries that Paris said would be able to be deployed in two months. About a dozen other countries agreed to assist Ukraine with these defense systems, including Germany. The name of the initiative is called “European Sky Shield.” 

German Air Force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz told The Jerusalem Post that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for an air defense system. Some work against close-range fire, while more-complicated systems, like the Arrow 3 or Hetz 3 is an exoatmospheric hypersonic, anti-ballistic missile that was funded by the U.S. and Israel.

These interceptors may come in handy after reports emerged last week that Iran is set to provide Russia with ballistic missiles and drones. 

Nachman Shai, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, said Iran’s assistance to Russia means the time has come for Israel to provide Ukraine with military aid and not just humanitarian aid.

Stoltenberg Says Quiet Part Out Loud 

Jens Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, said last week that if Russia emerges victorious in Ukraine, it would mean a defeat for the alliance—which was seen by top Russian officials as further proof of a wider war. (See “NATO’S JENS ‘NUTS’ STOLTENBERG WANTS TO KEEP UKRAINE WAR GOING,” 21 Jun 2022). 

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and the former Russian president, has been critical of NATO’s nearly unlimited support for Ukraine’s war effort, saying Stoltenberg’s comment was an open confirmation of the alliance’s “participation in the war.” 

He called Stoltenberg’s comments an “unwise, but pure-hearted remark. The honest Norwegian fellow has finally admitted it.”

Stoltenberg said Ukraine is in need of advanced weaponry and said NATO countries understand that ‘we have a moral, political and security interest in ensuring that Ukraine wins the war against President Putin.”

TRENDPOST: French President Emmanuel Macron once called NATO braindead and it seems as though his diagnosis was spot on. Stoltenberg said in June that it is likely that the Ukraine War could drag on for years and that Western countries should prepare for the long haul.

Stoltenberg made the comment during an interview with the German newspaper Bild. He said we must “not let up” in supporting Ukraine.

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” he said. “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine. Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, [but] also because of rising energy and food prices.”

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, famously wrote about the law of the instrument, and said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

TRENDPOST: The western media is awash with the headline that Iranian drones were used by Russians to strike Kyiv on Monday, but they never publish headlines that U.S. NATO Weapons are used by Ukraine to kill citizens of the separatist Donbas region or against Russian troops.