Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has served almost eight years as Secretary General of NATO.

He had announced plans to leave the post when Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine

plunged the West's military alliance into crisis management mode.

And so former Norwegian Prime Minister, Yenstoltenberg, is staying on at NATO HQ until September

2023.

And until then, he remains the chief coordinator and spokesman for a 30-nation-strong alliance

trying to project strength and unity in the face of Vladimir Putin's military

assault on Ukraine. Individual NATO members led by the US are ramping up their military assistance to

Kiev. The alliance is beefing up its military deployments on its eastern flank as well, to deter Russia

from expanding the conflict into NATO territory.

But for all of the talk of a reinvigorated NATO with Finland and Sweden now eager to join,

there are still clear divisions within the ranks over how far assistance to Kiev should go

and what the endgame for this war should look like.

Divisions which, according to the Kiev government, have resulted in NATO being of little use in the fight against Putin's forces.

Well, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joins me now from Brussels.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you so much for

having me, Stephen. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. I've got to begin with the stinging

comments just a couple of days ago from Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmitro Kuleba, who said that

NATO had in effect done nothing to help Ukraine. What's your response to that?

So first, I would like to just say that I had great respect for the government, the political

leadership, President Zelensky, Foreign Minister Kaleba, and Ukrainian people for what they

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