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Biden holds press conference as Russia and China slam NATO

30 June 2022 17:22 (UTC +04:00)

President Joe Biden called NATO “more united than ever” at a press conference Thursday as NATO faced rebukes from Moscow and Beijing after it declared Russia a threat and said China posed challenges to global stability, APA reports

Biden said NATO has transformed itself by adapting to a rapidly changing security situation around the globe amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.

The three-day summit included the Biden administration announcing plans to permanently bolster the U.S. military presence in Europe, an agreement between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden to pave the way for the accession of Nordic nations into NATO, and the alliance updating its strategic concept to reflect that China’s “coercive policies” are a challenge to the Western bloc’s interests.

“We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” Biden said as he announced Washington will give $800 million of additional weapons aid to Ukraine in the coming days.

During the summit in Madrid, the Western military alliance described a world plunged into a dangerous phase of big-power competition and facing myriad threats, from cyberattacks to climate change.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said as the summit wrapped up Thursday that member nations agreed on a “fundamental shift in our deterrence and defense” and sent Moscow a clear message that the alliance had a firm line drawn on its eastern frontier.

“We live in a more dangerous world and we live in a more unpredictable world, and we live in a world where we have a hot war going on in Europe,” Stoltenberg said. “At the same time, we also know that this can get worse if this becomes a full scale war between Russia and NATO.”