Nato is ‘defeated’ and cannot stop Russians ‘trampling all over Ukraine’, says former general

A former general has said Nato "has been defeated" and was “unable to stop the Russians trampling all over Ukraine”.

General Sir Nick Parker, a former commander of land forces in the British Army, said Nato is too big and a smaller coalition is needed to “develop an offensive counter-strategy to Putin”.

Asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about Nato's response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, he said: "Slightly controversially I suppose, I mean Nato's been defeated, Nato's bluff was called.

"We were unable to stop the Russians trampling all over Ukraine and now Nato is holding the line of the 2004 expansion, along the line of the Baltic states and Poland and Hungary and Romania.”

Ukraine is not a member of Nato and is not covered by the alliance’s Article 5 commitment, which says an attack against one is an attack against all.

'Absurd' comments

Defence commentators on social media derided the comments from the former deputy commander of Nato troops in Afghanistan as “absurd”, “nonsense” and “mind-boggling”.

Gen Parker, who was known as the "Black Prince" throughout his time in the military, said Nato should concentrate on reinforcing the 30-member alliance’s eastern flank that borders Russia.

"What it has to do is to defend that line, it's in what in military terms we would call a defensive position.”

Nato bolstered its defences in the area in 2016, in a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and efforts to destabilise the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Since then, additional battlegroups, each numbering about 600 soldiers and drawn from across the alliance, have been stationed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) mission.

Additionally, at last week’s Nato conference in Brussels, the alliance committed to expanding the EFP mission, with extra battalions sent to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

It means Nato will shortly have increased troop levels in all member states from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Gen Parker continued: "I don't think [Nato] has the capacity to move on to the offensive with its 30 nations all with slightly different views.

"We need to have a smaller coalition of nations who can start to develop an offensive counter-strategy to Putin."

Gen Parker did not expand on where this coalition would come from or what any offensive counter-strategy against Russia would look like.