Ukraine Recap: Germany Ready to Assume NATO Leadership Role
Workers stand by a crater following a strike the day before in Odesa, Ukraine, on Nov. 6.
Photographer: Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP/Getty Images
Germany is ready to take on the leadership role in NATO that allies have been urging for decades and Europe’s biggest economy and most-populous nation is committed to protecting the military alliance’s eastern flank against Russian aggression, according to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
“NATO has gained even more relevance and importance with Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine,” Pistorius said Monday at a conference on NATO policy in Berlin. “Because we can’t expect Russia to abandon its imperial fantasies in the coming years and decades, we are contributing significantly in the alliance to a credible and effective deterrence.”