Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - After NATO identified Moscow as the most "direct threat" to Western security and approved plan...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - After NATO identified Moscow as the most "direct threat" to Western security and approved plans to modernise Kyiv's struggling military forces, Russia continued its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Thursday.
Around 15,000 people continued to be subjected to constant bombardment in Lysychansk, a frontline city in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities who said they were attempting to evacuate civilians. Lysychansk was the target of Russia's attacks.
"Fighting is ongoing constantly. The Russians never stop being aggressive. Nothing is slowing down, "Serhiy Gaidai, the regional governor, spoke to Ukrainian television.
Every single item is being shelled.
Oleskiy Arestovych, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, claimed in a video that Ukrainian forces were retaliating with their own artillery strikes in the southern Kherson region.
NATO welcomed Sweden and Finland to join and promised a seven-fold increase in combat forces on high alert along its eastern flank starting in 2023 at a summit on Wednesday that was overshadowed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the geopolitical turmoil it has produced.
President Vladimir Putin responded by stating that Russia would reciprocate if NATO built facilities in Finland and Sweden after they joined the U.S.-led military alliance.
According to Russian news media, Putin stated that he could not rule out the possibility of problems arising in Moscow's relations with Helsinki and Stockholm over their decision to join NATO.
More land, sea, and air force deployments across Europe, from Spain in the west to Romania and Poland bordering Ukraine, were announced by U.S. President Joe Biden.
These included the first full-time American deployment on the eastern edge of NATO, a permanent army headquarters with an accompanying unit in Poland.
According to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, President Putin's campaign against Ukraine has "shattered peace in Europe and created the worst security crisis in Europe since the Second World War."
He remarked, "NATO has replied with strength and unity."
A further 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion) in military assistance, including air defence systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and sophisticated electronic warfare gear, was promised by Britain to Ukraine.
There are fights everywhere.
Russian forces stepped up their attacks in Ukraine, including missile strikes and shelling on the southern Mykolaiv region close to front lines and the Black Sea, as the 30 national leaders of NATO met in Madrid.
While Moscow claimed its forces had struck what it dubbed a training facility for foreign mercenaries in the area, the mayor of Mykolaiv city reported that at least five persons had been killed by a Russian missile in a residential building there.
The battle for control of the industrialised eastern Donbas region, which Russian forces are attempting to encircle in order to seize for rebel proxies, raged nonstop around the hilltop city of Lysychansk. The provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk make up Donbas.
A video footage of former American soldier Alexander Drueke, who was arrested while fighting with Ukrainian forces, was shown on Russia's official news agency, RIA.
The day he was captured near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, Drueke, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, claimed, "My combat experience here was that one mission on that one day. "I didn't shoot anything. I would hope it would be taken into consideration while deciding whether or not to condemn me."
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy once more warned NATO that Ukrainian forces required additional money and weaponry and that they needed them quickly in order to reduce Russia's significant advantage in artillery and missile capabilities. He also claimed that Moscow's aspirations extended beyond Ukraine.
Numerous cities have been destroyed, thousands have died, and millions have fled since the Russian assault started on February 24. To purge Ukraine of dangerous nationalists, Russia claims to be conducting a "special military operation." Russia is charged with an unwarranted, imperial-style territory grab by the West and Ukraine.
According to the senior U.S. intelligence official Avril Haines, the most likely near-term scenario is a protracted confrontation in which Moscow makes only minor gains but makes no significant progress toward achieving its objective of annexing the majority of Ukraine.
Fully Solidarity
A NATO declaration referred to Russia as the "most important and direct threat to the partners' security" after earlier classifying it as a "strategic partner," a reference to the rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries since the invasion.
A strong, independent Ukraine is essential for the stability of the Euro-Atlantic region, according to a new Strategic Concept statement from NATO, the organization's first since 2010.
In order to modernise Ukraine's mostly Soviet-era military, NATO decided on a lengthy financial and military aid package.
The declaration stated, "We stand in full sympathy with the government and people of Ukraine in their valiant defence of their homeland.
According to Stoltenberg, NATO has decided to deploy 300,000 troops on high readiness beginning in 2023, up from the current 40,000, to guard a region spanning the Baltic and Black seas.
NATO's invitation to Sweden and Finland to join the alliance marks one of the most momentous shifts in European security in decades as Helsinki and Stockholm drop a tradition of neutrality in response to Russia's invasion.
