Nato members cast doubt on plans for 300,000 strike force

A PLEDGE to increase the size of Nato’s rapid response force from 40,000 to 300,000 troops was last night thrown into disarray as members of the alliance refused to commit their soldiers.

Officials were forced to concede that the project, which was announced on Monday by Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, was instead a work in progress as they attempted to muster enough firepower to make it a reality.

Speaking at the end of the second day of a Nato summit in Madrid, Mr Stoltenberg acknowledged his plan requires allies to “contribute the forces they have promised to contribute” and he was “confident” it could be done.

Officials said the policy was “not yet fully decided” and “just a concept”, with the size and scale of the rapid response force still up for discussion.

Another source added: “We’ve still not had a full explanation of the secretary-general’s policy.”

British officials said they were not ready to comment on the numbers they could contribute to the force.

The news emerged as Nato leaders discussed the alliance’s most significant defensive overhaul since the end of the Cold War.

The organisation pledged “unshakable” support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, the root cause of the shift in policy. Speaking via video link, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, yesterday warned members it would be seen as a joint failure if Moscow is not defeated in a year.

He called for more Western weapons and financial support as the war was costing Ukraine about £4 billion each month. “Next year could be a worse situation – if not only Ukraine, but also several other states, possibly members of the alliance, come under fire from Russia. And then it will be our common failure – Ukraine and Nato,” he said.

For the first time Nato yesterday declared China poses a challenge to the alliance and that Beijing’s close ties to Moscow provided a risk.

Speaking at an event on the fringes of the Madrid summit, Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said: “I do think that with China extending its influence through economic coercion and building a capable military there is a real risk that they draw the wrong idea which results in a catastrophic miscalculation such as invading Taiwan.”

Authorities successfully traded 144 Ukrainian troops with Moscow yesterday while intense street battles continued on the outskirts of Lysychansk, the last bastion of resistance against the Russians in the Luhansk region.