- NATO calls Russia a “direct and significant threat”
- Ukraine praises NATO’s “difficult but essential decisions”
- Putin: Russia will respond to NATO movements in Finland and Sweden
- Attacks with Russian missiles are intensifying in Ukraine
MADRID / Kyiv, June 29 (Reuters) – NATO on Wednesday called Russia a major “direct threat” to Western security following its invasion of Ukraine and agreed on plans to modernize the besieged armed forces of Kyiv, saying he was totally behind the “heroic defense of the Ukrainians.” your country “.
At a summit dominated by the invasion and the geopolitical upheaval it has caused, NATO also invited Sweden and Finland to unite and pledged to multiply by seven from 2023 the forces on high alert throughout the its eastern flank against any future Russian attack.
In reaction, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would respond in the same way if NATO installed infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after it joined the US-led military alliance. Read more
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Putin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that he could not rule out tensions in Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm over its accession to NATO.
U.S. President Joe Biden announced more ground, sea, and air force deployments across Europe from western Spain to Romania and Poland on the border with Ukraine.
These include a permanent army headquarters with an escort battalion in Poland, the first full-time U.S. deployment in the eastern strip of NATO. Read more
“President Putin’s war against Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and created the biggest security crisis in Europe since World War II,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at a conference press.
“NATO has responded with strength and unity,” he said.
The UK said it will provide £ 1bn ($ 1.2 billion) more in military support to Ukraine, including air defense systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and new electronic warfare equipment. Read more
‘FIGHT EVERYONE’
As the 30 NATO national leaders gathered in Madrid, Russian forces intensified attacks on Ukraine, including missile attacks and bombings in the southern Mykolaiv region, near the front lines and the Black Sea.
The mayor of the city of Mykolaiv said a Russian missile had killed at least five people in a residential building there, while Moscow said its forces had hit what it called a training base for foreign mercenaries in the region.
The governor of the eastern Luhansk province reported that he had “fought everywhere” in a battle around the city of Lysychansk, which Russian forces are trying to encircle as they try to capture the industrialized region of eastern Donbas in name of the separatist representatives. Donbas comprises Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
Donetsk Regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian television that Russian attacks killed one civilian and killed eight on Wednesday.
A vision of the explosion when a Russian missile attack hits a mall in the middle of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in a place called Kremenchuk, in the Poltava region, Ukraine, in this still image taken from an image of CCTV posted on June 28, 2022. CCTV via Instagram @ zelenskiy_official / Handout via REUTERS
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Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports.
Also in Donetsk, a video clip broadcast on the Russian state news agency RIA showed former US soldier Alexander Drueke, who was captured while fighting by Ukrainian forces. Read more
“My combat experience here was that mission that day,” Drueke of Tuscaloosa, Alabama said, referring to the day he was captured outside of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. “I didn’t shoot any shots. I hope that would have a factor in any sentence you make or don’t receive.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again told NATO that Ukrainian forces needed more weapons and money, and more quickly, to erode Russia’s huge advantage in artillery and missile firepower, and said that the ambitions of Moscow did not stop in Ukraine.
The Russian invasion that began on February 24 has destroyed cities, killed thousands and made millions flee. Russia says it is conducting a “special military operation” to free Ukraine from dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of unprovoked and imperial-style land grabbing.
U.S. intelligence chief Avril Haines said Wednesday that the most likely short-term scenario is an overwhelming conflict in which Moscow only makes incremental gains, but no progress on its goal of getting the most out of it. of Ukraine.
‘FULL SOLIDARITY’
In a look at the hasty deterioration of relations with Russia since the invasion, a NATO statement described Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to Allied security,” after having classified as a “strategic partner”.
NATO issued a new strategic concept paper, the first since 2010, which said that “a strong and independent Ukraine is vital to the stability of the Euro-Atlantic area.”
To this end, NATO agreed on a package of long-term financial and military aid to modernize the largely Soviet Ukrainian army.
“We fully support the government and people of Ukraine in the heroic defense of their country,” the statement said.
Stoltenberg said NATO had agreed to put 300,000 troops in high readiness by 2023, up from the current 40,000, under a new force model to protect an area stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Read more
Zelenskiy, in a video link to the summit, said Ukraine needed $ 5 billion a month for its defense and protection.
“This is not a war that Russia is waging against only Ukraine. It is a war for the right to dictate conditions in Europe, as will the future world order,” he said.
NATO’s invitation to Sweden and Finland to join the alliance marks one of the most momentous changes in European security in decades, as Helsinki and Stockholm abandon a tradition of neutrality in response to the invasion of Russia. Read more
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Reuters office reports; written by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Deepa Babington; edited by Frank Jack Daniel, Gareth Jones, Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast
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