Kiev may have to accept loss of territory – Stoltenberg

Ukraine may have to recognize the loss of some of its territory to Russia in favor of achieving peace and security guarantees, Jens Stoltenberg said in his first long interview after stepping down as NATO secretary general. 

Stoltenberg ended his 10-year tenure as the chief of the US-led alliance on October 1. In a conversation with the Financial Times published on Friday, he said that Kiev may be forced to rethink seeing the restoration of the 1991 borders as a prerequisite for any peace deal. 

Stoltenberg suggested that “a kind of new momentum” would come after the US presidential election in early November, possibly ushering in “ways to try to get movement on the battlefield combined with movement around the negotiating table.” 

The West should “make the conditions” that would enable Ukraine to “sit down with the Russians and get…