Putin Won't Win the War, German Chancellor Says

Vladimir Putin won't win the war in Ukraine, and his invasion has already failed to achieve all of its strategic goals, Germany’s chancellor said.

Conquering the whole of Ukraine is now even less possible than at the start of the war, Olaf Scholz said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Our goal is very clear: Putin must not win his war,” Mr. Scholz said.

“And of this I am convinced: he will not win.”

Mr. Scholz said Mr. Putin has suffered a strategic setback both on the battlefield and in the region.

Sweden and Finland would be welcomed into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mr. Scholz said, while Ukraine and other former Russian dominions, such as Georgia and Moldova, were moving more determinedly toward what he called a European future.

Mr. Putin is pursuing an imperialist agenda in an attempt to drag Europe back into the times when war was an accepted means of conducting politics, Mr. Scholz said.

The reaction of NATO, as well as the European Union and the Group of Seven, Mr. Scholz said, will make it plain to Russia and any other nation that a “multipolar world is not a world without rules.”