Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is a legitimate act of self-defense, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said.
In his first reaction to Ukraine’s push into Russian territory, that started on August 6 and appeared to take both Vladimir Putin and Kyiv’s allies by surprise, Stoltenberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that Kyiv “has a right to defend itself.”
Under international law, that right “does not stop at the border,” said Stoltenberg, who added that NATO did not know in advance about Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky’s plans.
“Ukraine did not coordinate its planning for the Kursk offensive with NATO beforehand,” he said, according to a translation. “In this respect, NATO played no role in this.”
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The incursion was discussed at a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine-Council on Wednesday that was requested by Kyiv following one of the biggest wave of air attacks by Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion.
Stoltenberg said that Zelensky had clarified the bold operation “aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks from across the border,” and that “like all military operations, this comes with risks.”
“But it is Ukraine’s decision how to defend itself,” added Stoltenberg.
Ukraine’s allies have given measured support for the incursion, in which Kyiv says it has captured around 500 square miles of territory, although there is speculation over the objectives of the operation, especially as Moscow’s troops continue to make gains in the Pokrovsk sector of the Donetsk region.
On Friday, the U.K. said that Article 51 of the United Nations charter gave Kyiv the right to “project force” onto Russian territory given Moscow’s continued attacks on civilian infrastructure.
“Ukraine has the right to self-defense against Russian attacks,” said Fergus Eckersley, U.K. political coordinator at the U.N. “This does not preclude its right to project force into Russian territory, so long as action complies with international law.”
“Russia cannot step up the war from its own soil, while increasing attacks on the civilian population, and expect Ukraine not to seek to remove the source of the threat,” Eckersley added.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment.
As Ukraine takes the fight to Russian territory, Kyiv has pushed the Biden administration to drop its restrictions on allowing U.S.-supplied long-range weapons to strike at military targets in Russia amid divergent views within the European Union over the use of European arms for such purposes.
European Union High Commissioner Josep Borrell said on Friday it was up to individual EU member states to decide on whether to let Ukraine use the long-range weapons each has supplied.
Military expert David Silbey, history professor at Cornell University, told Newsweek that no single weapon could suddenly change the battlefield dynamic.
He said that since the start of the war, there has been a continuing belief that if only the West gave Ukraine a certain weapon such as M1 tanks, Leopard tanks, F-16s or ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) “the course of the war would change.”
“Now, it’s if only the U.S. would allow Ukraine to use the ATACMS deeper into Russia,” he told Newsweek. “The problem is that none of these technological wonder solutions have fulfilled that war-winning vision. They’ve all been useful, but this war is not going to be won because of some high-tech super weapon.”