NATO in 300k troops boost
MORE than 300,000 NATO troops are being switched to high alert.
The move is aimed at bolstering defences on the 30-member alliance’s eastern flank amid fears of mounting aggression from Moscow.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday appealed to the G7 for more weapons to repel the ongoing Russian attacks and urged the West to be “partners, not observers”.
And he insisted he wanted the war to be over before the winter bites.
President Zelensky is understood to have told world leaders at the G7 summit “if Ukraine wins, you all win”.
His plea came as NATO chiefs prepared to descend on Madrid for a meeting from tonight. SecretaryGeneral Jens Stoltenberg said new
troops will be added to the 40,000 already in the coalition’s response force.
He added: “We will increase the number of our high-readiness forces to well over 300,000. ”
Finland and Sweden’s bids for NATO membership are due to be discussed at tomorrow’s Madrid summit, which will be attended by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson. Leaders are also expected to
overhaul the alliance’s approach to the Kremlin. In 2010, it described Moscow as a strategic partner.
But that was before it annexed the Crimea in 2014 and launched a full military invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year.
Johnson earlier told the G7 summit at Elmau in the Bavarian alps the “price of freedom is worth paying”. The PM added: “Just remember, it took the democracies in the middle of the last century a long time to recognise that they have to resist tyranny.
“It was very expensive but with the defeat of the dictators, particularly of Nazi Germany, it bought decades and decades of stability, a world order that relied on a rules-based national system, and that is worth protecting.”
Johnson claimed the economic impact on Britain of the Ukraine war, soaring fuel and food prices, “will start to abate”.
He said: “In terms of staying the course, imagine if we allowed Putin to get away with the violent acquisition of huge chunks of another country.”
Johnson was at the summit with wife Carrie, who was greeted with a kiss by French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte.