Zelensky calls for Nato military aid
UKRAINE’S president has pleaded with Nato to provide his embattled nation with military assistance.
In a video address to the Nato summit in Brussels yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine needed “military assistance without limitations” as Russia was “using its entire arsenal” against the country.
Mr Zelensky urged Nato to provide Ukraine with “1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks”.
“We can’t just buy those,” Mr Zelensky added. “When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.”
Ukraine is also in dire need of multiple rocket launch systems, anti-ship weapons and air defence systems, the president said. “Is it possible to survive in such a war without this?” he asked.
Mr Zelensky said Russia used phosphorous bombs yesterday morning, killing both adults and children.
He reminded Nato leaders that thousands of Ukrainians had died in the past month and 10 million people had left their homes, and urged Nato to give “clear answers”.
“It feels like we’re in a grey area between the West and Russia, defending our common values,” Mr Zelensky said. “This is the scariest thing during a war – not to have clear answers to requests for help.”
Mr Zelensky did not reiterate his request for a no-fly zone or ask to join Nato, according to a senior official with US president Joe Biden’s administration.
At the end of the summit, Nato secretarygeneral Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance was stepping up its defences against chemical and nuclear weapons as concern mounted that Russia might use such weapons in Ukraine.
Mr Stoltenberg said Nato leaders agreed to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a chemical weapons attack.
“This could include detection equipment, protection and medical support, as well as training for decontamination and crisis management,” he told reporters.
Mr Stoltenberg said the 30 Nato allies were also boosting their own “preparedness and readiness”.
The leaders agreed to deploy four new battlegroups, which usually number from 1,000 to 1,500 troops, to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Four other battlegroups are stationed in the Baltic states and Poland.
Nato nations are concerned that Russia’s attempt to falsely accuse them of working on chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine is part of a ruse by Moscow to create a pretext for using such arms itself.
After a month of fighting, Western analysts say Ukrainian forces need stocking up again with the weapons that have helped them slow and repel Russian advances.
Both sides claimed yesterday to have inflicted more blows.
Ukraine’s navy said it sank a ship that had been used to resupply the Russian campaign with armoured vehicles. Russia claimed to have taken a town, Izyum, in eastern Ukraine after heavy fighting.