Former NATO commander warns the alliance must fully back Ukraine now or risk a direct war with Russia

• An ex-NATO commander warned of the consequences of not increasing support for Ukraine.
• Sir Richard Shirreff said NATO could get pulled into the war if it didn't provide full support.
• He said that NATO was ill-prepared for the possibility of a direct war with Russia.

Former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff has warned that unless the West increases its support for Ukraine, it could get pulled into a direct conflict with Russia.

Speaking to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sir Richard said that the war was at an inflection point, and the West needed to step up and increase its support for Ukraine in defeating the Russian invasion.

"Either the West doubles down now to give Ukraine the tools it really needs to do the job in a series of sustained counteroffensives, or the West faces — I think NATO faces — the very real possibility in two to three years' time of potentially having to intervene to support the Ukrainians [to] achieve final victory," he said.

"Because there's only one outcome of this; it's got to be victory. This is a war not just against Ukraine; it's a war against the West," he said.

Sir Richard compared the situation to that which took place before the start of World War II, when Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany set out to conquer swathes of Europe.

"We have to recognize that once again in Europe there is a bloodstained autocrat prepared to inflict unspeakable suffering on peaceful democratic neighbors to further his own imperious ambitions. We've been here before in 1939 to 1945. And we're here again," said Sir Richard.

His comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited European capitals last week, where leaders pledged billions of dollars more in military support for Ukraine ahead of its anticipated spring offensive.

Leaders in the US and Europe have been wary of providing Ukraine with some of the military aid it has requested, reportedly believing that it could antagonize Russia and lead to a direct conflict with NATO. Russian hardliners have menaced NATO allies with threats of nuclear attacks over their support for Ukraine.

So far, the US and its allies have pledged $150 million in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of the country in February 2022, German think tank the Kiel Institute said in January.

But as Ukraine gears up its anticipated Spring campaign to push the Russian military back from the territory it occupies in east and southern Ukraine, Sir Richard warned that the West needed to further increase its support.

He said the West should agree to Ukrainian requests for F-16 fighter jets to offset Russian superiority in the air, increase defense spending, and boost the the amount of ammunition it supplies to Ukraine.

As things stand, he said, the West is ill-prepared for the worst case scenario — direct conflict with Russia.

"We are a long way short of that, [but] that [new mindset] is simply not happening," he said.

Sir Richard served as NATO's deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, and in 2016 penned a book, '2017: War with Russia: An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command,' in which he imagines the likely results of a war between Russia and NATO allies.