After Russia’s heavy air strikes against Ukrainian cities, Kiev is asking NATO for help. A US general analyzes the situation in eastern Ukraine.
Kiev/Brussels – At Kiev’s request, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has called a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. According to alliance spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah, the meeting today will focus on the situation on the battlefield and the most important military needs of the country attacked by Russia. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is expected to join via video conference.
The NATO spokeswoman cited the recent waves of heavy attacks by Russia on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians as the background to the meeting. The NATO-Ukraine Council met for the first time last year at the NATO summit in Lithuania at the level of heads of state and government. The new body was created for exchange in crisis situations.
Russia has carried out heavy air strikes on Ukraine in recent nights. According to initial reports from Ukrainian authorities, at least four people were killed – two people when a rocket hit a hotel in Kryvyi Rih and two more when drones attacked Zaporizhia. Air raid warnings were also issued in many regions of Ukraine on Wednesday night, particularly in the east of the country and on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X: “We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks.”
Reports: Fires in Russian oil depots
During the night, several fires broke out in oil storage facilities in the Russian region of Rostov following explosions, Russian and Ukrainian media reported. The governor of the region bordering Ukraine, Vasily Golubev, reported on his Telegram channel that four enemy drones had been shot down. There were no injuries. He did not initially comment on possible damage. The information could not be independently verified.
Heavy fighting continues in eastern Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russian troops continued their assaults around the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. Heavy fighting raged near Toretsk in the area around the settlement of Nyu Jork (New York), the General Staff in Kiev reported in its situation report. Nine attacks were repelled. 25 Russian attacks were registered near Pokrovsk. These attacks were also repelled, it was reported. The information could not be independently verified.
The situation there is “far from easy,” said Selenskyj. “They are 100,000, we are 100,000,” he said, describing the balance of power. The Russian soldiers have no choice but to continue attacking. “Because if they retreat, they will be shot by the Russian army.”
The bloody exchange of blows between Russian attackers and Ukrainian defenders also continued at Chasiv Yar. “We used to experience between 10 and 20 attacks by Russian stormtroopers every day,” said Oleh Kalashnikov, press spokesman for the Ukrainian brigade deployed there. “Now it has become a little less frequent, but the intensity has increased.” Chasiv Yar is now a pile of rubble.
The former commander of the US troops in Europe, General Ben Hodges, saw no particular danger for Ukraine in the slow advance of the Russian troops from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk. Russia captured Avdiivka, 50 kilometers away, in February and only now, almost six months later, came close to Pokrovsk. “And that’s with almost 1,000 deaths per day,” Hodges told the Ukrainian agency RBK. “These are not exactly Marshal Zhukov’s quick strikes.” Georgi Zhukov led the Red Army to success in the battles for Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin during the Second World War.
The Russian General Staff is certainly determined to focus on its offensive towards Pokrovsk and Toretsk. “They could do what their grandfathers did 80 years ago, which is to allow some breakthroughs in other parts of the front and wait to strike later,” Hodges said. “But I don’t think they have the competence or the resources of their grandfathers, and many of the best Soviet soldiers were, of course, Ukrainians.”
Medvedev: We must protect new areas of Russia
According to Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian army must protect the areas of Ukraine it conquered and which Moscow has since annexed. “We have every opportunity to achieve these goals,” said the vice-chairman of the National Security Council. By the “new regions of the Russian Federation” he meant the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has now annexed these four regions as well as the Crimean peninsula and considers them to be national territory.
Most of the goals of the special operation, as Moscow officially calls the war of aggression against Ukraine, have been achieved. “And now there are slightly different goals that also have real consequences on the ground,” Medvedev stressed at a party event in Moscow. “We have four new subjects of the federation, which is good for our country because it is our country.” But these regions must be defended. It was unclear whether Medvedev was hinting at further territorial conquests in order to possibly establish buffer zones around the annexed areas. dpa
#NATOUkraine #Council #meets