NATO chief says Putin tries to use ‘winter as a weapon’
Russian attacks leave unreliable power grid
Russian President Vladimir Putin is intent on using frost, snow and ice to his advantage on the battlefield and against Ukrainian civilians facing a winter of unreliable energy for heat amid unrelenting Russian bombings, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.
That is why NATO’s allies are stepping up their support for Ukraine, Stoltenberg said on the eve of NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest, Romania.
“President Putin is now trying to use the winter as a weapon of war against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said. “This is horrific, and we need to be prepared for more attacks.”
Foreign ministers from seven Nordic and Baltic countries visited Kyiv on Monday and pledged to send generators, cold-weather clothing and food.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russian troops were preparing new strikes.
“As long as they have missiles, they won’t stop, unfortunately,” Zelenskyy warned. “The upcoming week can be as hard as the one that passed.”
Latest developments:
⬤ Zelenskyy acknowledged the situation at the front remains “very difficult,” especially in the Donetsk province, part of the eastern Donbas region that Russia has claimed to annex. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said residents “have been living in catastrophic conditions without power or heating.”
⬤ Of the more than 16,000 missiles Russia has fired at Ukraine in the war, 97% have been aimed at civilian targets, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted. “We are fighting against a terrorist state,” Reznikov said. “Ukraine will prevail and will bring the war criminals to justice.”
⬤ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Russian forces will leave the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear energy operator Energoatom, said last week that the company saw signs Russia was preparing to leave the battered plant.
⬤ After retreating from the southern city of Kherson this month, Russian troops have continued to bombard it from across the Dnieper River. Britain’s Defense Ministry reported a record-high 54 strikes Sunday.
⬤ Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei, a longtime ally of Kremlin-friendly President Alexander Lukashenko, died suddenly over the weekend at age 64. The ministry did not disclose a cause.
Kyiv prepares for evacuations
Some of Kyiv’s 3 million people might need to be evacuated to places where essential services would be less prone to shutdowns caused by Russia’s intensifying missile attacks, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Monday. Russia has pounded energy facilities around Kyiv with a barrage of missile and drone strikes, resulting in power outages and disruption in water supplies to the city. Klitschko said the “worstcase scenario” can’t be ruled out and preferred the term “relocation” as opposed to evacuation.
“There will not be a complete evacuation. Perhaps a partial one,” Klitschko told the Ukraine media outlet RBC. “This is a temporary relocation of certain categories of people to the suburbs, where there may be services.”