13:54
Stoltenberg: “Ukraine will be a NATO member but now it has to win”
“We have said and reiterated many times that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance. But the goal now is to ensure that Ukraine wins the war, because the only way to integrate and to ensure that Ukraine can move towards closer Euro-Atlantic cooperation is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign nation and independent”. This was stated by the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, in the press conference at the end of the defense ministerial. “So the main and urgent goal for the allies is to ensure that Ukraine gets the weapons and ammunition supplies it needs to repel the Russian invaders,” he reiterated.
13:46
Crosetto: “On defense spending, some allies are asking for 3-4% of GDP”
“There has been talk of each country’s commitments on spending for the defense sector and some that have already reached the 2% target have proposed targets of 3-4%”. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said on the sidelines of the NATO ministerial in Brussels. “Italy is now below 2%, it has undertaken with all governments to reach it within a date that varies according to the government and NATO meetings: I introduced the theme of combining the commitment to 2% into the debate with the limits of the European parameters, which oblige a choice of that type to other cuts”, he added.
13:46
Crosetto: “The next two or three months will be decisive”
The next “two-three months before the summer” will be “decisive” for the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said on the sidelines of the NATO ministerial in Brussels. With regard to the supply of further armaments, discussed in Brussels in recent days, the minister specified that “an attacked country like Ukraine needs everything, moreover it does not have a defense industry that produces, therefore it needs help, because Russia, on the other hand, is an industrial power from that point of view”.
13:24
“NATO countries ready to increase ammunition production”
To meet the needs deriving from support for Ukraine, NATO partners today pledged to collaborate with industries to increase the production of ammunition. This was stated by the NATO secretary general at the end of the Alliance’s Council of Defense Ministers. “Ministers also addressed ways to increase industrial capacity and replenish stocks of armaments and munitions. NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to help Ukraine repel Russia’s aggression. At the same time, this is consuming a huge amount of allied ammunition and depleting our stocks,” he added. This was stated by the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, in the press conference at the end of the defense ministerial. “We agree on the need to work hand in hand with the defense industry to increase our industrial manufacturing capacity,” he added.
13:05
Medvedev: “Von der Leyen is a gynecologist who doesn’t understand anything about economics”
“It’s bad when the head of the European Commission does not understand economics at all and is used to looking at purely medical objects. How else to explain that the EU’s highest-ranking gynecologist is calculating Russia’s losses from a new wave of sanctions with undisguised glee, but is not counting the losses of her (European, ed.) companies”. This was written by the vice president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, who on his Telegram channel returns to attack the president of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen: “Alas, the rule of medicine does not apply here, cura te ipsum! (doctor, heal yourself),” adds Medvedev. The vice president of the Russian Security Council does not even spare Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy: “And the second man, exhausted by Narzan, nicknamed Borrell, asks to diligently look for tanks for the Ukrainian regime in warehouses in Europe. That’s right, this is the only way a true diplomat should act! He is the chief diplomat of the EU and no one else who should repeat that Russia is the eternal enemy of Europe and call for a victorious end to the war (the end of Ukraine, of course)! Who is next? – concludes Medvedev -. The freak show must go on…”.
12:31
Swedish premier in Kiev
Swedish premier Ulf Kristersson is in Kiev to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky: reports the Swedish news agency TT.
12:27
EU sanctions, blacklist of Putin’s propagandists and commanders
The tenth package of sanctions will include “new bans on the export of industrial goods for eleven billion, further restrictions on the export of technological products used on the battlefield, the inclusion in the black list of Putin’s propagandists and military commanders”. Ursula von der Leyen announced it. Furthermore, “we propose new measures to prevent avoidance. Next week we will organize an international forum on sanctions”, explained the president of the Commission, asking “all member countries to adopt the package quickly”.
11:46
Kiev: “Moscow delays our counter-offensive with the attack on Bakhmut”
The Russian strategy of attacking Bakhmut and Vugledar, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, aims to delay the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the spokesman of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry, Andriy Yusov, said today, as reported by the Kyiv Independent. Yusov also said that the ongoing Russian offensive did not compare to the scale of the February 24 invasion, as Russia has equipment problems despite having mobilized thousands of men.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, US military experts are concerned about Ukraine’s determination to defend Bakhmut, suggesting priority should instead be given to preparing for the spring counteroffensive.
11:00
Borrell: “Decisive spring and summer, give tanks to Kiev”
“We have armed Ukraine but we must continue with military aid and we must increase it”. This was confirmed by the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, Josep Borrell, speaking at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, urging “all the countries that have effective tanks that accumulate dust, to give them to Ukraine before possible”. “Because – he added – this spring and this summer will be decisive, the war will be decided this spring and this summer”.
10:56
Wallace (UK): “If we sent jets we would have to send 200 men”
Western allies are responding to calls for increased military support from Ukraine by sending “thousands of surface-to-air missiles, drones and longer-range missiles”: British Defense Minister Ben Wallace stressed this today to the BBC on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels. Wallace added that these weapons can have “the same effects” as fighter-bombers to help Kiev “make impossible” further “Russian advances”. Not without underlining once again the obstacles that instead currently stand in the way of a hypothetical supply of fighter jets: due to a matter of necessary technical times, availability, but above all because – if the United Kingdom were to send its contingent of aircraft – it would necessarily have to send “200 RAF soldiers” to Ukraine today as well.
