NATO pledges support to Kiev, condemns Putin coalition’s “imperialist ambitions”

A man walks past a destroyed Russian tank on display in Central Q on June 29, 2022 (AFP / Sergei SUPINSKY)

At a summit in Madrid, NATO on Wednesday pledged its support for Ukraine as needed for Russia’s “atrocities”, while denouncing the coalition’s “imperialist ambitions” that the Russian president wants to assert its “supremacy”.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, referring to the “moral and political responsibility” for the Atlantic Alliance, said “Ukraine can trust us”, which convened in Madrid until Thursday. And Finland.

In a joint statement, NATO member states, which have already provided billions of dollars in arms to kyiv, said they had agreed to a new aid package to “provide unchanging military equipment” and strengthen Ukraine’s defense against it. Cyber ​​attacks.

“Russia’s horrific atrocities are causing human suffering and mass displacement,” they wrote, adding that “Moscow bears full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe.”

The announcements of Dmitry Kuleba, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, are welcome to welcome Russia to this “strong position” and “clear.”

In response to NATO leaders’ announcements, Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the NATO alliance’s “imperialist ambitions” during a press conference in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, on Wednesday, seeking to assert its “supremacy” over him. Ukrainian conflict.

“The benefit of the Ukrainian and Ukrainian people is not the goal of the West and NATO, but rather a means of safeguarding their own interests,” he said.

– “Significant Threat” –

The NATO summit helped member states to adopt a new strategic roadmap that considers Russia to be the most important and direct threat to its allies’ security.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zhelensky speaks via video conference before the NATO summit in Madrid on June 29, 2022 (AFP / GABRIEL BOUYS)

“We do not rule out the possibility of an attack on Allied sovereignty or territorial integrity,” the document assures, which has not been amended since 2010.

According to NATO, the new roadmap is aimed at China for the first time, representing a “challenge” to its “security”.

In a show of solidarity, NATO nations have pledged to strengthen their military presence in the eastern part of the coalition, increasing the number of its “high-readiness forces” to more than 300,000 troops.

“This is the most important restructuring of our collective security since the Cold War,” Jens Stoltenberg outlined.

US President Joe Biden stressed that “we are” and “we are proving that NATO is more necessary than ever”, and announced that he was strengthening the U.S. military presence throughout Europe and especially in the Baltic countries.

– Turkish veto removed –

The Madrid summit officially made possible the process of joining Sweden and Finland, which decided to join NATO in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, breaking the long tradition of non-alignment.

(lr) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his US envoy Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 29, 2022 in Madrid (AFP / GABRIEL BOUYS)

The member has so far been blocked by Turkey, particularly in Stockholm and Helsinki, accusing the Kurdish organization PKK of harboring militants, which Ankara considers a “terrorist.”

But after lengthy negotiations, Ankara gave its agreement on Tuesday evening for the two Nordic countries to enter NATO.

NATO’s forthcoming expansion into the two Nordic countries has angered Moscow.

This is a “factor of deep instability in international affairs,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybkov, who condemned the “aggression” movement towards Russia.

Workers in the rubble of a Russian missile-hit shopping mall in Kremensk, June 29, 2022 (Ukrainian State Emergency News Service / STR)

In a statement, Russian diplomacy threatened to retaliate against Norway, accusing the NATO member state of blocking the delivery of goods to Russian settlers in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago Svalbard.

Vladimir Putin “expects less from NATO in his West” but “he is completely wrong”: “he gets more from NATO”, started by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson after the agreement reached in Madrid.

– “Intensity peak” –

On the ground, however, Ukraine continued to pay high prices for the war, with new deadly attacks on civilians, especially in Mikolaiv (southern), where a strike on a residential building killed five people, regional officials said.

Map of the situation in Ukraine as of GMT (AFP /) on June 29 at 7 am

The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a crowd of protesters, according to the Ukrainian government.

On Wednesday evening Mr. Putin denied the Russian military’s responsibility for the strike. “Our army has not attacked any civilian infrastructure base,” he said.

In Lyssytchansk in eastern Ukraine, the governor of the Lugansk region Serguiï Gaïdaï estimates that the “frequency” of Russian bombings is “enormous”. “We see the peak of the fighting intensity,” he continued on Ukrainian television.

In addition, Ukrainian authorities announced the rescue of 144 soldiers, 95 of whom were “Azovstal guards” in Mariupol as part of the “biggest exchange since the beginning of the Russian invasion (of prisoners with Moscow).”

In a video late Wednesday, Zhelensky announced that he would end diplomatic relations with Syria after the regime in Damascus recognized the independence of the pro-Russian separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been backed by Moscow since 2014.

Flowers, candles and stuffed animals were left outside the Kremenshok shopping center the day after a Russian missile attack on Ukraine (AFP / Genya SAVILOV) on June 28, 2022.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Wednesday that Russia had “failed at all its main objectives” at the military level. The war in Moscow has a “huge price”, he promised in an interview with LBC radio, estimating that the number of Russian soldiers killed since the beginning of the conflict is “25,000”.

Boris Johnson’s report on Vladimir Putin’s male poisoning ‘. “If Putin had been a woman, (…) I do not think he would have gone down in this insane luxury war,” the British prime minister told the German television channel ZDF.