The West expected the war in Ukraine to be a short-term campaign, but now NATO realizes that a "new phase of the Cold War" is coming.
This was stated by the head of the Ministry of Defense of Finland, Antti Hakkanen, who was quoted by Politico, after his visit to the USA.
According to Hakkanen, despite the increase in military aid to Ukraine from Western countries, russia is capable of "continuing the war for years," and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed the political landscape of Europe forever. The Finnish Minister noted that Western countries initially did not realize this and delayed increasing the production of weapons for supply to Ukraine.
The European Union announced an ambitious goal in early 2023 to send 1 million 155 mm artillery shells to Ukraine by the end of the year, allocating USD 1.1 billion to compensate countries for these efforts. However, the original plan was not carried out, and by November, about 300,000 shells had been sent.
"A lot of Western countries probably thought that this was a short-term problem. But now, I think almost everyone in the US and NATO countries understands that this is the end of the last 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. Now we are entering some kind of new period of cold war," he explained.
In December, Hakkanen's government announced that it was doubling its ammunition production, committing to send most of it to Ukraine. He declined to specify the scale of the new production or to name the exact ammunition that would be produced.
"Many people self-confidently believe that the West will win, that Ukraine will win," Hakkanen believes.
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