Former NATO secretary-general Lord George Robertson of Port Ellen said that the West must keep their focus on Ukraine, as the world’s attention has shifted towards the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Lord Robertson, who was in the top NATO role between 1999 and 2003, warned that Vladimir Putin has a “much bigger agenda in the future.”
Lord Robertson said, “I think it is inevitable that because we’re seeing the television from Gaza every day, that people are paying less attention to Ukraine, but that must change.
“We have got to keep the world’s attention focused on Ukraine because they are involved in a fight with Russia that has got huge implications for all of us as well.
Read more on Russia-Ukraine war:
Russia hit with a ‘mass drone attack’ causing a series of explosions across cities
“Vladimir Putin is not simply interested in subjugating Ukraine.
“He has got a much bigger agenda in the future, and if he succeeds in Ukraine, who knows where he is going to stop.”
He added: “We cannot allow the Ukraine conflict to go down the attention span. That suits Vladimir Putin and nobody else.
“The fact is that most of his objectives have actually turned to dust. He wanted to stop NATO enlargement, and it is now bigger. He wanted to divide Europe and divide Europe from America, he failed in that respect.
“He wanted to take over the whole of Ukraine and now he is stuck in the Donbas. There’s a miserable failure there by the one man who made the decision to invade Ukraine.
“We have got to change the mind of that one man by staying absolutely united and making sure that Ukrainians get the weaponry and the ammunition they need, when they actually need it.
That is the only way we’ll change Vladimir Putin’s mind. The stakes are enormously high because if Putin succeeds, he won’t stop at Ukraine.”
