In his speech at his centre-left PSOE party congress in Cantabria, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain must show solidarity with countries on Russia's borders, as Moscow continues to threaten democracy and rule-based order.
"What is at stake is not simply a war or an invasion. There is something much more besides this, which would be important in itself, and that is that the multilateral order is at stake," Sánchez said at the closing event on Sunday, stressing that it is a system based on principles established in the United Nations Charter.
The Spanish leader indicated that the aim is to achieve a "just and lasting" peace in Ukraine, where "peace is urgent, but not at the cost of rewarding the aggressor, which will open the door to future, even more serious aggressions."
He was also blunt in declaring that "if Ukraine wants to be part of the European Union, Russia has to respect what Ukraine wants to be".
Sánchez, however, acknowledged the different security realities faced by European countries, admitting that "defence in the east of Europe has nothing to do with the security challenges we have in Spain."
Despite this, the president said that Spain would help those under threat.
"We are not going to have a physical attack from Russia like some of the Baltic or Nordic countries, such as Finland, might have," Sánchez said.
"They need our solidarity and they need and demand that together we increase our security capacity to dissuade Russia," he explained, reaffirming Spain's pro-European commitment both "out of interest" and "out of conviction".
