Conor here: Note the following is from US Blob influence outlet RFE/RL and is littered with falsehoods. It also omits that Stoltenberg is now chairman of the Munich Security Conference, commonly referred to as “Davos with guns.”
All that said, Stoltenberg’s book release comes as the situation goes from bad to worse for Project Ukraine ahead of what promises to be a brutal winter. While western media focus on Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure —which do have an effect but do nothing to change the conflict dynamics— here’s what Ukraine is facing soon, courtesy of Intellinews:
Russia’s retaliatory campaign has seen gas production fall by some 60%, according to comments by Naftogaz last week, and ten regions out of a total of 24 are already suffering from blackouts or have been put on emergency power supply regimes, according to Ukrenergo.
Ukraine was already short of gas supplies to get through the winter, with some 11bcm of gas in storage against the 13bcm it needs to heat and light the country until March. Ukraine produces some 20bcm of gas domestically each year and will be forced to import the rest. However, with German gas tanks only 75% full – by far the largest in Europe after Ukraine’s – ahead of an EU November 1 deadline to have 90%, the rest of Europe is also short of gas as the mercury starts to fall.
This helps explain why, as Moon of Alabama put it yesterday, “EU-NATO Retreats From ‘Ukraine Is Winning’ To Begging For A Ceasefire.”
And here’s Glenn Diesen with a neat summary of the situation:
Europe cannot sustain the proxy war against Russia on its own. The United States is selling weapons it doesn’t have to Europe, which can’t afford them, in order to arm Ukraine, which lacks the manpower to use them. pic.twitter.com/eb1cjdN2eY
— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) October 14, 2025
Let the finger pointing begin.
By Ray Furlong, a Senior International Correspondent for RFE/RL. He has reported for RFE/RL from the Balkans, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and elsewhere since joining the company in 2014. He previously worked for 17 years for the BBC as a foreign correspondent in Prague and Berlin. Originally published at RFE/RL.
Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance “was letting Ukraine down” by failing to deliver enough support during 2023-24, describing a “defeatist” mood in Washington and European nations failing to make promised arms deliveries.
Stoltenberg, who was head of the western military alliance from October 2014 until October 2024, makes the criticisms in a new book, On My Watch, Leading NATO In A Time Of War, to be released on October 23.
The book covers his entire period in office, including NATO’s “defeat” in Afghanistan in 2021 and Russia’s initial aggression in Ukraine in 2014. It also ponders the future of the alliance following the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2024.
“The tone among the allies is sometimes sharp,” Stoltenberg, who is currently Norway’s finance minister and a former prime minister of the Nordic nation, writes.
“However, the [US] administration’s views on security policy and NATO cooperation are recognizable. China continues to be considered the United States’ most important challenger and strategic competitor; the pivot towards the Indo-Pacific region is ongoing and intensifying. Demands that Europe and Canada spend more on their defense are far from new.”
But Stoltenberg’s recollections of meetings with senior officials ahead of and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 offer some of the most revealing insights.
Prelude To War
His account of the run-up to the attack details Russia’s lack of interest in genuine talks, in particular a meeting in New York in September 2021 in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was constantly interrupting him while his spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, “groaned and rolled her eyes” whenever Stoltenberg spoke.
In mid-October 2021, he writes, a NATO intelligence officer told him that Russia intended “to invade.” The reason, he believes, was fear of the “political threat” posed by a “democratic and ever more West-facing Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg also describes how Russian President Vladimir Putin changed, becoming increasingly isolated — particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This account tallies with that given by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her memoirs, released earlier this year, where she says Putin didn’t come to the G20 summit in 2021 because he was afraid of catching the virus. She has said this isolation may have been among the main factors behind Putin’s reason to invade.
Despite this, Stoltenberg writes, key NATO countries France and Germany were in denial, just as they had been when Russian troops seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
“Both occasions illustrated the deep disagreement among NATO nations in their views of Russia,” he writes. These divergent views occur repeatedly as the narrative progresses.
Woken By War
Full-scale war in Europe, the largest since World War II, began for Stoltenberg with a 4:25 a.m. phone call. Shortly afterwards, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin voiced concern about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, telling Stoltenberg: “We fear for his life.”
Four days later, Stoltenberg finally got on the line to Zelenskyy, who repeatedly requested a NATO-imposed no-fly zone. The request was denied. “The conversation,” notes Stoltenberg, “was painful.”
Later, he writes that there had been a “widespread perception” in NATO that Kyiv would fall within days.
NATO countries did impose wide-ranging economic sanctions and began shipping arms, as well as providing Ukraine with economic and humanitarian aid. Millions of Ukrainian refugees received sanctuary in Western countries.
According to the Kiel Institute, in Germany, European nations provided 177 billion euros ($206.4 billion) of aid to Ukraine between January 2022 and August 2025, while the United States provided 115 billion euros over the same period.
Within this, Washington is the biggest supplier of military aid, with some 64.6 billion euros worth of arms and armaments. Germany is second, at 17.7 billion. Shipments have included Patriot missile-defense systems, tanks, artillery, and fighter jets, as well as British and French Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles.
But critics have long argued that enough has not been done and that the help provided has often come too late. Stoltenberg agrees.
‘Passive And Defeatist’
Recalling preparations ahead of the NATO summit in July 2024, he writes “there was something passive and defeatist about our partners in Washington. They risked little, they failed to take the offensive, and they hid away their president.”
Stoltenberg says that then-US President Joe Biden was deterred from making decisions by his concerns about what “the other guy” would say, referring to Trump.
“But it wasn’t just the US which was letting Ukraine down,” he writes. “The EU had promised to provide Ukraine with a million artillery shells from March 2023 to March 2024, but less than half had been delivered.”
Russia, backed by China economically and North Korea militarily, had more resources than Ukraine in a war of attrition, Stoltenberg writes. Yet some NATO nations, instead of tipping the balance, “simply offered the bare minimum of support.”
It’s just over a year since Stoltenberg stepped down as NATO chief. In February, the 66-year-old took a new position as finance minister in his native Norway.
Speaking at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 17, he said NATO countries were still giving “too little, too slowly.”
This, he said, has a direct link to a planned meeting in Budapest between Trump and Putin.
“We have to talk to the Russians. But when you talk to the Russians it has to be based on strength…they have to know that we are supporting the Ukrainians. The stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger their hand will be at the negotiating table,” he added.
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Or in other words “Don’t blame me!”
Rutte took over at NATO a year ago, so I guess that is when Stoltenberg (or his ghost writer) started with the book. In other words, it was known a year ago that Ukraine is losing the war, hence Stoltenberg writing a book about why it isn’t his fault. I think that is relevant to keep in mind when analysing actions.
This war must really coming to an end. You can tell by how yesterday’s has-beens are coming out with CYA books explaining how nothing was their fault and it was everybody else not listening to them. Stoltenberg was bad enough in his ravings but it was Merkel that really made this war possible by ensuring the Minsk agreements were never enforced but the Ukrainian military upgraded to fight a war. And when it was stated that ‘Putin didn’t come to the G20 summit in 2021 because he was afraid of catching the virus’ he may have had a point considering the present crop of leaders seem to be suffering from Covid brain. Stoltenberg repeats the myth how Kev nearly fell when in fact the Russians only had a very small force incapable of taking such a huge city which I believe had the pop of Chicago. He argues that not enough has been done but there are completely empty armouries throughout the NATO countries that say otherwise. But then he says this-
‘The EU had promised to provide Ukraine with a million artillery shells from March 2023 to March 2024, but less than half had been delivered.’
I remember that well. NATO went around the whole world paying top dollar for 155mm shells from black marketeers, dodgy governments with stockpiles of the shells as too risky to use and any other fly-by-night seller they could find. At that they only found half what they wanted and at least half of those purchased had to be rebuilt to make them functional once more. It was a fiasco so no wonder Stoltenberg does not mention that bit. Norway had better be careful before Stoltenberg, as Norway’s Minister of Finance, tries to hand over the entire Norway Oil Fund to Zelensky.
US and vassals could have had peace in Dec 2021. Stottenberg ignores Russia’s valid security concerns. Trump continues.
The story goes “down hill” from there.
The problem, of course, is that there is no way of objectively establishing which security concerns are “valid.” Most wars in history seem to have started because one or more nations felt threatened, and my valid security concerns are seldom the same as yours if you are my neighbour. Indeed, security concerns tend to be a zero-sum game, often to your neighbour’s detriment (see the valid security concerns of Germany and the Soviet Union from 1938-41)
Quite what the Russians thought they were doing in December 2021 remains a mystery to me. You just don’t slap down draft treaty texts and say to thirty nations “sign here.” There was zero chance NATO governments would accept an entirely one-sided text of that sort, and in any event national parliaments would never have ratified it. Normally, the Russians are cleverer than this, so I really don’t know what the were trying to do, except perhaps profit from tabling something they knew in advance would be rejected.
I always had the impression that even the Russians considered those treaties “starting points” (hence the word “draft” when describing them)? And the contents of them were largely points that they were asking the West to consider for quite a few years? And they also tried to emphasize a NOT zero sum game regarding mutual security, as agreed upon by all in previous years? Has all that been a misconception on my part?
Not necessarily, but if that’s your objective, you don’t proceed that way. Normally, the Russians would have begun with a speech by Putin or Lavrov, arranged bilaterals with major western states, circulated a discussion paper with various topics and various proposals for the shape and contents of the negotiations, and then staged a diplomatic offensive suggesting that a treaty was needed. There would then have been negotiations about the negotiations, including venue and organisation, then each side would produce draft elements in diplomatic language, then in treaty language, then there would be parallel technical committees to look at the details and so on. At a minimum, to get to a final treaty text would take 2-3 years.
By contrast, tabling a finished text, even including the names of the putative signatory states, is something that has never been done before except for example at the Versailles negotiations. (Even there, the Germans did manage to get a few concessions.) It struck me at the time that the Russians were not serious, which is odd for them, because they are usually very professional. Of course they played up the supposed virtues of the text, as any nation would in the circumstances, but it remains a hopelessly one-sided document, and the Russians must have known it stood no chance of being accepted, even as a basis for further negotiations. (If you expect further negotiations, you don’t table a text like that.) My assumption is that by that point Putin had decided that war was inevitable, or at least highly likely, but wanted some kind of a political fig-leaf such that he could at least say “he tried.”
The NATO reaction, although clumsy and insulting, could not have been unexpected. But it’s an interesting counter-factual to imagine a different NATO response, coming back with their own set of proposals, and this returning the ball. But I suspect the Russians knew in advance that this would not happen.
I see, thank you. The “warm-up” particulars that usually don’t hit the news (except in a rather undetailed and desultory way). The stuff that the general public may or may not be made aware of.
And given some of the history that’s been discussed since then, it does look rather uncharacteristic. It makes it seem clear that the decision to do the SMO was a done deal at that point.
I will say though that it kind of makes sense given 1) the obvious failures of Minsk from the Russian perspective, and 2) the obvious recalcitrance of the West to even talking about mutual security as opposed to bending the knee.
Again, thanks for the window into how the sausage is normally made! At least I feel that I haven’t completely misunderstood the past decade, and now have a better idea about the heavy lifting behind the scenes.
Also, time. “At a minimum, to get to a final treaty text would take 2-3 years.” There may have been an estimation that waiting to launch the military operation could be risky, jeopardizing its success.
How long the process you described would have taken? Several years?
Obviously there was no time for that, with Ukrainians strangling the two republics and preparing to retake them by military force, which started in early February 2022.
Thus, US and NATO got the war that they desired, convinced that Russia will eventually crumble.
Even if negotiations on the Russian text had started immediately, it would not have stopped the war: the two are not functionally related. As I recall, Ukraine was not a party to the negotiations, so there’s no way they could have influenced the decision the Russians took.
I remember scanning the text of the Russian proposal (in English) and thinking, “This is amazingly rude”. It may have been a beginning bargaining chip but I later came to think that it was some kind of last ditch effort to slap some sense into the USA and NATO.
I do not think Russia thought it had much time to negotiate. Ukrainian forces, including a nice selection of Banderite fascists were massing to attack the Donbas Republics. It was pretty apparent that with Azov, Pervi Sector and, I think, Carpathian Sech, among others that the Donbas Republics were facing vicious ethnic cleansing plus it was possible a successful attack on the Donbas might be extended to the Crimea.
I agree with you that Putin almost certainly thought that war was inevitable but I think he was trying anything he and the security council could dream up to buy time to actually start negotiations.
From the Russian reaction, I think Zelensky’s repudiation of the nuclear weapons ban was the last straw. I don’t see how Ukraine was going to quickly build a nuclear bomb but Ukraine had several nuclear power stations, and quite likely the technical expertise to build a dirty bomb. Putin pointed out that back in Soviet times there was a lot of relevant expertise in Ukraine.
I think that the security concerns that the Russians had were nuclear-tipped missiles on the Ukrainian border. Blinken told Lavrov that the US was going to do this and the only thing up for discussion was how many. The worse part of this idea is that it would put the world on a knife edge as far as WW3 was concerned. If the Russians think that they detect nuclear missiles being launched at them, they have about fifteen minutes to find out if it is real or a mistake or a sensor glitch like has happened in the past in the US. If there were nuclear tipped missiles in the Ukraine, that reaction time would have been reduced down to six minutes for the Russians to discover if they are being attacked or not and thus more likely to launch a counter-strike. To me that is a helluva security concern.
Not to forget that Gorbatshov said NATO can’t extent to Ukraine or there will be war, Yeltsin said NATO can’t extend to Ukraine or there will be war, Putin said NATO can’t extend to Ukraine or there will be war, Medvedev said NATO can’t extend to Ukraine or there will be war.
The proposals in December 2021 were the last minute attempt to prevent the war by “waking up” NATO. Of coourse it did not work, since war was what NATO wanted. Just not the war they got.
It’s worse than that. Russia was not a big subject for the West at the time. It was considered to be a weak and declining state, led by an old man who had fever dreams of rebuilding the Soviet Union of his youth, and who therefore needed to be watched in case he did something silly. Russia was not a military threat to the West: Putin’s grab for Ukraine in 2014 had failed miserably, and the “separatists” controlled from Moscow hadn’t been able to expand their territory much, if at all. Minsk had bought time for the Ukrainians to rearm so that they could defend their country properly, and western training and the construction of a whole series of fortifications in the East should keep Ukraine safe while it pursued its pro-western destiny. It was hoped Putin would not do anything silly, but if he did it was assumed that Ukraine, with western help, would hold out. The Russian military was in poor shape and if Putin was stupid enough to try an attack his troops would not get far. Indeed, some bungled attack would only hasten the demise of Putin’s regime and allow Russia to resume its positive economic and political development.
Of course, not everybody shared all parts of this assessment (which anyway contained its own contradictions) but then that’s never the case anyway. There were a few nutcases who would have welcomed a war, but the eyes of the world for the most part were on other things.
The Russian military was in poor shape….
Ah yes. I remember waking up and checking the news on Feb 25 or 26 and thinking, “If I were a NATO general I’d be very, very worried just about now”.
This is existential for Russia.
Yes valid “security concerns” are unique to country, time, and circumstances. I conclude Russia decided this is existential sometime in winter 2013/14.
What were the Russians’ plan in late 2021? I can surmise; observing from Clinton and all the successors trashing Baker’s assurances, to the 1999 bombing of Belgrade, to adding the Baltics to NATO, to events in SW Asia, to the Kiev coup, to years oppressing aRussians under Kiev dominion, to years of shelling Donbas, to Minsk perfidy….
Russia should be telling Trump: “enough roll it back.”
Sorry for the world If Trump keeps pushing more perfidy.
It is now kinetic, how far does TrumpGraham go along with the “nuclear war ain’t so bad” advisors?
The “national parliaments….. have no say.
The best place for Russia to fight NATO is east of Dneipr.
What does Trump bloviating about tomahawks to bring Russia to the table say? That Russia is same as Syria…?
Seems to me Ivan, a term for Russia from the Cold War, sees!
Indeed, like Moscow, Borodino, Poltava, Smolensk, Kursk(!), and so on from the years past…
Maybe Zelensky’s speech in Munich abrogating the Minsk Accords, and declaring Ukraines’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons & them massing some 100,000 troops along the Dneiper had something to do with the SMO decision.
What other scales are available for wars and invasions besides full? N, O?
Hard to read Stoltenberg without a little mcbarf rising other than a sign of what is to come (major CYA).
Soon we should hear “who lost the war” from the democrats (CYA! once its losing status percolates into the public perception), likely during the midterm elections with President Trump declining in popularity (all presidents lose popularity by the midterms). The imperial center cares naught for vassal opining, but the opposition? Trump can say it was Biden’s war a thousand times, what matters is if the public believes Trump or if the public believes he doth protest too much. And if Trump (announced committer of war crimes viz Caribbean boats, etc.) feels cornered and vulnerable. Interesting times!
So the war started not because NATO had been moving eastward for decades, not due to the US-sponsored coup in Ukraine that put anti-Russian pols in charge, not because the West helped build the largest army in Europe in Ukraine and placed masses of men and weaponry right on Russia’s border, not because of the civil war that killed 14K Russian speakers, and not the increased shelling of the Donbass right before the invasion. Nope, it all happened because Putin was scared of catching the rona! That’s a hell of a dose of cope right there.
> … the civil war that killed 14K Russian speakers …
This number of 14,000 dead was frequently bruited at the time the SMO began. At root, it seems to be based on an OSCE report which added up 14,000 total dead. That includes civilians and fighters on both sides. Thus, presumably, a significant percentage of them would have been Ukrainian speakers.
No, because most civilians and fighters on both sides were not Ukrainian speakers, including Zelensky himself.
“Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance “was letting Ukraine down” by failing to deliver enough support during 2023-24”, whilst the more discerning amongst us assume that the NATO leadership failed their own citizens by sacrificing their treasure and their future economic wellbeing after plunging them into a civil war between two ethnic groups following a US/UK organised coup against a President likely to be re-elected the following year in an imaginary country which didn’t spring into existence until 1991 after the signing of the Belovezha Accords, of doubtful legitimacy, by the Soviet Republics of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Neither US nor all the NATO countries could have provided the sufficient AirPower to succeed in Kiev’s ill conceived 2023 adventures.
There are too few air bases east of the Vistula to sortie the air power necessary to defeat Russia in Donbas.
NATO had no infrastructure for the air land order of battle…. in the Russia steppes.
US is putting billions in an airbase in Rumania a big target…..
Jacques Baud yesterday delivered sharp analysis with Nima and put it delicately:
No matter how much more men and weapons NATO would have provided (RU were well in the minority when SMO began) – RUs would have always won. Because you need a strategy, you need competence. NATO has neither.
Col. Jacques Baud: Can Europe’s Move Change Trump’s Strategy?
68 min.
https://rumble.com/v70kqa8-col.-jacques-baud-can-europes-move-change-trumps-strategy.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a
The 2021 Russian document reminds me of the old saw: How do explain something to a mule. Well first you hit the mule in the head with a 2×4 to get its attention.
Of course it is now 2025, not 2021. Does Europe understand Russia’s position yet? Does the US?