General Mark Milley: United States will defend every inch of NATO territory

In an interview for TVN24 BiS reporter Jan Niedziałek, United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Alexander Milley said his country remained committed to the defence of NATO.

"As you’ve heard president Biden say on many, many occasions, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory. Poland is a NATO Article 5 country. I was just in Estonia yesterday, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania – these are all NATO Article 5 countries, and the United States currently has forces deployed in every single one of these countries. And our intent is to ensure that these countries remain safe and secure," Gen. Milley underscored.

"We just did our fifth conference led by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, we just did our fifth conference in Ramstein, Germany. We had 50, 51 nations attending. These are basically donor conferences in which nations pledge commitments in lethal and non-lethal aid to help Ukraine. I’m very, very confident that these significant amounts of aid are heading in the direction of Ukraine even as we speak right now. I was just this morning at one of the locations where we transfer aid to the Ukrainians, and we are making sure Ukraine has what they need to defend their freedom," he added.

The general also praised the Ukrainians for their resistance. "There's no question that Ukraine has fought an exceptionally courageous fight from the very beginning."

"Russia launched an unprovoked invasion on the 24^th of February - totally unnecessary - Ukraine was not threatening Russia. And they invaded Ukraine with a significant amount of force, probably something between 150,000-200,000 Russian troops, multiple lines of advance, they tried to surround Kyiv – the capital – from two different directions, they tried to advance past the Dnipro river, they tried conduct assaults out of Crimea into the south, and they were preparing an amphibious landing in Odesa. All of that failed. Russia’s strategic plan has failed," Gen. Milley said.

"Ukraine has successfully defended (itself) through courage, sheer grit, resilience, but also through great tactics. They fought an incredible area defence, their mobile area defence anchored on rural strongpoints, effective use of anti-tank weapons, effective use of anti-aircraft, and their leadership has been superb, their morale, their will and their determination. So, Ukraine remains a free and independent country today because of the bravery of the Ukrainian people and their leadership, and also because of the support from the West," U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Asked about potential next steps of Russian President Vladimir Putin, General Milley said it remained unknown.

"Right now the Ukrainians have seized the strategic initiative, there are offences being conducted up in Kharkiv and down in Kherson, and it remains to be seen how those will play out. Those are still in their early stages. These offences have all been going on for about two weeks, they’re achieving initial success. Hopefully, the Ukrainians will be able to sustain that success," he said.

"But we don’t know what Putin’s reaction will be. Russia is a very big country, Russia is a very powerful country. Putin is a very, very ruthless dictator and he has ambitions and aspirations, and he has not yet determined that the war is over. So, this war has got all ways to go, it’ll probably be a longer war than people may have anticipated at the beginning of this fight," the general added.

General Milley also said Putin's army was not doing too well. "They’ve suffered a tremendous amount of casualties, their morale is low, their leadership is not performing well, they’re having difficulty in sustainment and lots of other different issues.

"So, right now, at this minute, the strategic initiative has shifted to the Ukrainians because of these counteroffensives and Russian offensive action in stall. But that doesn’t mean that this will hold true tomorrow or the next day or the next week. War is interactive between two competing wills, there’s action, reaction and counteraction. So, we’re still early in this fight for these counteroffensives and we’ll see how it plays out and we’ll what Putin’s reactions are," he said.

"But I can tell you this: the United States remains firm in its commitment to NATO, we have a Senate-ratified treaty, and the President of the United States is absolutely firm in what he has said and the directions he has given the U.S. military, which is to defend every inch of NATO territory," United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed.