MADRID (National Times) – Western allies vowed on Tuesday to boost NATO s defences and to back Ukraine to the end as Moscow demanded Kyiv s surrender.<\/p>\n
As NATO leaders gathered in Madrid for a summit, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said Finland and Sweden would be formally invited to join NATO after Turkey lifted its block on their bids.<\/p>\n
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had stubbornly refused to approve their applications — lodged in response to Russia s war on Ukraine — despite calls from his NATO allies to clear their path to membership.<\/p>\n
But he abandoned his opposition following crunch talks on Tuesday with the leaders of the two Nordic countries in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Erdogan s office said late on Tuesday it had agreed to back their applications, saying Ankara had “got what it wanted”.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the agreement between Finland, Sweden and Turkey, saying their membership would make the defence alliance “stronger and safer”.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a senior US official said their membership would be a “powerful shot in the arm” for NATO unity.<\/p>\n
NATO s expansion came as Russian missiles continued to pound Ukrainian cities.<\/p>\n
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters arriving with President Joe Biden that Washington will announce “historic” new long-term military deployments in Europe.<\/p>\n
The reinforcements will join NATO s eastern flank, Russia s nervous neighbours like the Baltic states, and reflect a long-term change “in the strategic reality” elsewhere in Europe.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the summit, Stoltenberg said the allies would boost their high-readiness forces from 40,000 to 300,000.<\/p>\n
– New sanctions –<\/p>\n
Before travelling to Madrid, Biden and other leaders of the G7 powers — the world s richest democracies — had held a summit in the German Alps.<\/p>\n
Germany s Chancellor Olaf Scholz boasted afterwards that his country, a laggard in defence spending, would build “the largest conventional army within the NATO framework in Europe”.<\/p>\n
Russia s invasion, he said, had convinced Berlin “that we should spend more… an average of around 70 to 80 billion euros a year on defence over the next few years”.<\/p>\n
NATO member Bulgaria announced it would expel 70 staff from Russia s diplomatic mission accused of working against its interests.<\/p>\n
At the G7 summit, the leaders agreed to impose new sanctions targeting Moscow s defence industry, raising tariffs and banning gold imports from the country.<\/p>\n
The US Treasury said the measures “strike at the heart of Russia s ability to develop and deploy weapons and technology used for Vladimir Putin s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine,”<\/p>\n
The new set of sanctions target Rostec, Russia s largest defence conglomerate, as well as military units and officers implicated in human rights abuses in Ukraine, the Treasury said.<\/p>\n
Putin s Kremlin was not fazed by the sanctions, warning that Ukraine s forces only option was to lay down their arms.<\/p>\n
“The Ukrainian side can stop everything before the end of today,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.<\/p>\n
“An order for the nationalist units to lay down their arms is necessary,” he said, adding Kyiv had to fulfil a list of Moscow s demands.<\/p>\n
– Everything burned –<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the United Nations to visit the site of a missile strike on a shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk, as he addressed the UN Security Council on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“I suggest the United Nations send either a special representative, or the secretary-general of the United Nations, or a plenipotentiary commission to the site of this terrorist act… so the UN could independently find out information and see that this indeed was a Russian missile strike,” Zelensky said of the attack on Monday that killed at least 18 people.<\/p>\n
“Everything burned, really everything, like a spark to a touchpaper. I heard people screaming. It was horror,” witness Polina Puchintseva told AFP.<\/p>\n
All that was left of the mall was charred debris, chunks of blackened walls and lettering from a smashed store front.<\/p>\n
Russia claims its missile salvo was aimed at an arms depot — but none of the civilians who talked to AFP knew of any weapons store in the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
And, outside Russia, the latest carnage sparked only Ukrainian fury and western solidarity.<\/p>\n
“Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime,” the G7 leaders said in a statement, condemning the “abominable attack”.<\/p>\n
Zelensky declared on his social media channels: “Only total insane terrorists, who should have no place on Earth, can strike missiles at civilian objects.<\/p>\n
“Russia must be recognised as a state sponsor of terrorism. The world can and therefore must stop Russian terror,” he added.<\/p>\n
The G7 leaders did not go so far as to brand Putin a terrorist — but they vowed that Russia, already under tough sanctions, would face more economic pain.<\/p>\n
“The G7 stands united in its support for Ukraine,” Scholz told reporters.<\/p>\n
“We will continue to keep up and drive up the economic and political costs of this war for President Putin and his regime.”<\/p>\n
– Oil price cap? –<\/p>\n
The G7 had announced several new measures to put the squeeze on Putin, including a plan to work towards a price cap on Russian oil.<\/p>\n
The group also agreed to impose an import ban on Russian gold. At the same time, the G7 powers heaped financial support on Ukraine, with aid now reaching $29.5 billion.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, with fierce artillery duels continuing in the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian officials said the central city of Dnipro and several other sites had been hit by more Russian missiles.<\/p>\n
Pro-Moscow forces detained Igor Kolykhayev, the elected mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.<\/p>\n
Russian media said the “nationalist” was an opponent of Moscow s supposed efforts to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, but Kolykhayev s aides said he had been “kidnapped” by the city s illegitimate occupiers.<\/p>\n
The UN said 6.2 million people are now estimated to have been displaced within Ukraine, in addition to 5.26 million who have fled abroad.<\/p>\n
“Ukraine now faces a brutality which we haven t seen in Europe since the Second World War,” Stoltenberg said as leaders began to gather in Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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