Ukraine gets Nato boost in its war against Russia
Sweden’s ruling party says it’s in favour of joining Nato just hours after Finland’s announcement
KYIV: Nato on Sunday pledged open-ended military support for Ukraine, as Finland hailed its “historic” bid to join the alliance and with Western claims that Russia had suffered heavy losses in its push east.
The promise came after Finland jettisoned decades of military non-alignment for a bulwark against Russia, redrawing the balance of power in Europe and angering the Kremlin.
On the ground in Ukraine, Russia announced airstrikes in the east, as well as in Lviv, near the Polish border in the west which has largely been spared the destruction of elsewhere.
At a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Berlin, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock said it would provide military assistance “for as long as Ukraine needs this support for the selfdefence of its country”.
“Ukraine can win this war. Ukrainians are bravely defending their homeland,” Nato chief
Jens Stoltenberg added.
Sweden’s ruling party said it was in favour of joining Nato just hours after Finland’s announcement, in a remarkable turnaround in political and public opinion following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said the alliance would look to provide both with interim security guarantees while the applications are processed, including possibly by
increasing troops in the region.
In Berlin, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said he heard “almost across-theboard, very strong support” for the bids, despite misgivings from Turkey. Earlier, Western intelligence claimed that Russia has suffered huge military losses in Ukraine and that it will get bogged down in the strategic east because of stiff local resistance.
Away from the conflict, Ukraine was basking in the morale-boosting glory of the landslide win of its entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s biggest live music event.
‘Lost momentum’
On the battlefield, Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had carried out “high-precision” missile strikes on four artillery munitions depots in the Donetsk
area in the east of Ukraine.
Airstrikes had also destroyed two missile-launching systems and radar, while 15 Ukrainian drones were taken out around Donetsk and Lugansk, it added.
In Lviv, the regional governor, Maksym Kozytsky, said four Russian missiles hit military infrastructure near the border with Poland.
No casualties were reported and Ukrainian armed forces said they destroyed two cruise missiles over the region.
Lviv was last hit by Russian missiles on May 3.
UK defence chiefs said Russia’s offensive in the eastern Donbas region had “lost momentum”. Demoralised Russian troops had failed to make substantial gains and Moscow’s battle plan was “significantly behind schedule”, UK Defence Intelligence said. “Russia has now likely suffered losses of one third of the ground combat force it committed in February.
“Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.”
Exact, reliable casualty figures have been hard to come by, with Ukraine and Russia regularly publishing claims of enemy dead.