Nato squares up to Putin’s Russia
Bloc says Moscow ‘greatest threat’
MADRID: The United States vowed to reinforce Europe’s defences in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Nato declared Moscow the West’s greatest threat — prompting Vladimir Putin to lash out at the alliance’s “imperial ambitions”.
Meeting in Madrid Wednesday, Nato leaders said Russia “is the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”.
This came as Nato officially invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance, and US President Joe Biden announced new deployments of troops, ships and planes.
Mr Biden said that the US move was exactly what Russian President Putin “didn’t want” — and Moscow, facing fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces equipped with Western arms, reacted with predictable fury.
Mr Putin accused the alliance of seeking to assert its “supremacy”, telling journalists in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat that Ukraine and its people are “a means” for Nato to “defend their own interests”.
“The Nato countries’ leaders wish to ... assert their supremacy, their imperial ambitions,” the Russian president added.
Nato leaders have funnelled billions of dollars of arms to Ukraine and faced a renewed appeal from President Volodymyr Zelensky for more long-range artillery.
“Ukraine can count on us for as long as it takes,” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said at the summit, which ended yesterday, announcing a new strategic overview that focuses on the Moscow threat.
The document, updated for the first time since 2010, warned that the alliance “cannot discount the possibility” of an attack on its members.
“Today in Madrid, Nato proved it can take difficult but essential decisions.
We welcome a clear-eyed stance on Russia, as well as the accession for Finland and Sweden,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
But Mr Putin dismissed Nato’s invites to Finland and Sweden, which abandoned decades of military nonalignment in response to the invasion, as “no problem”.
Russian missiles have continued to rain down across Ukraine. Mr Zelensky said that a missile strike on the southern city of Mykolaiv destroyed a five-storey building, killing at least five people.
The city of Lysychansk in the eastern Donbas region — the current focus of Russia’s offensive — was also facing sustained bombardment.
The frequency of the shelling there is “enormous”, the regional governor of Lugansk, Sergiy Gaiday, said in televised comments Wednesday, adding that the evacuation of some 15,000 civilians still in the city “might be dangerous at the moment”.
In Kremenchuk, the town where a Russian missile on Monday destroyed a shopping centre and killed at least 18 civilians, clearing operations continued.
A giant crane was working near the site of impact, and in the rubble-strewn parking area shopping trolleys piled with clothes and household goods lay abandoned.
Western leaders have dubbed the Kremenchuk strike a war crime. Russia says it hit a depot storing Western arms, and Mr Putin on Wednesday denied Moscow’s forces were responsible for the attack.