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reference news reported on september 21according to a report by russia's kommersant on september 20, nato secretary-general jens stoltenberg will step down on october 1 after ten years in office. he delivered a farewell speech on september 19, summarizing his work achievements and sending a parting message to the allies.

stoltenberg became nato secretary general in 2014, just as the ukrainian crisis was unfolding in europe. under his leadership, nato added four new members - montenegro, north macedonia, finland and sweden. in addition, according to the outgoing secretary general, by the end of 2024, 23 of the 32 alliance members will reach the 2% of gdp standard for defense spending.

stoltenberg was supposed to step down in the fall of 2018, but his term was extended until 2020. then, the allies decided to keep him in office until 2022. his term was extended again after russian troops entered ukraine. now, former dutch prime minister mark rutte will be stoltenberg's successor. in terms of the length of his term, stoltenberg ranks second among all nato secretaries-general, second only to dutchman joseph luns, who led nato from 1971 to 1984.

in his farewell speech, stoltenberg said that the world has changed fundamentally in the past decade: the ukrainian crisis, the emergence of the islamic state, the intensified competition with china, the covid-19 pandemic, more sophisticated cyber attacks, and the growing impact of climate change on security. these are all issues that nato has to deal with. he said that during this period, even the necessity of nato's own existence has been questioned. he mentioned french president macron's speech in 2019 about nato's "brain death", which caused laughter from the audience.