Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's new book has been published.
According to Modern.az, he wrote about the events and memories he experienced during his tenure in his book.
The book notes that US President Joe Biden described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “tyrant, a backstabber.”
According to Stoltenberg, on the eve of the NATO summit held in June 2023, Zelensky demanded clear promises regarding alliance membership. The US President, irritated by this, said in a conversation with Stoltenberg, “He is a real headache.”
The Ukrainian leader's social media post, made while en route to the summit, accusing NATO of “absurd indecisiveness,” caused dissatisfaction in Western capitals. According to Stoltenberg, although some NATO countries wanted to express more open support for Kyiv after this post, the Americans were considering removing some clauses from the document altogether.
In his memoirs, Stoltenberg also touches upon the first days of the war. He states that in February 2022, NATO leadership believed Kyiv would fall “in a few days” and Ukraine would be occupied “in a few weeks.”
He also recalls his phone conversation with Zelensky on February 28, 2022: “Zelensky was very calm, but spoke more insistently than before. He wanted NATO to close the sky. I told him that this would put us directly into war with Russia. We supported Ukraine, but we did not want to die for it. This was a harsh reality, and I could not give false hope.”
According to Stoltenberg, it was he who proposed the “Finnish option” to Zelensky for negotiating with Russia and stopping the fighting, meaning ceding certain territories in exchange for neutral status.
Although Zelensky initially firmly rejected this idea, he later began to approach a compromise “in exchange for NATO membership” with less reluctance.
The former Secretary General also recalls his meeting with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger 10 years ago. Kissinger opposed Ukraine's NATO membership, emphasizing the importance of the country remaining a “bridge between East and West”: “He said that Ukraine is more important to Russia than the West. Therefore, caution is necessary.”
Jens Stoltenberg's memoirs consist of eight parts and have already been released for sale in Europe. The book contains new details about both internal discussions within NATO and the alliance's potential to influence the course of the war.
