NATO's defence ministers confront Ukraine challenges, desire for air defence systems
On the battlefield, Ukrainian military says forces have recaptured 5 settlements in Kherson region
NATO defence ministers, including Canada's Anita Anand, met Wednesday as the alliance's member countries face the twin challenges of supplying weapons to Ukraine while protecting vital European infrastructure like pipelines or cables that Russia might want to sabotage in retaliation.
In the almost eight months since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, the 30-nation military alliance has been treading a fine line, as an organization, providing only non-lethal support and defending its own territory to avoid being dragged into a wider war with a nuclear-armed Russia.
Individual allies though continue to pour in weapons and ammunition, including armoured vehicles and air defence or anti-tank systems. They're also training Ukrainian troops, building on the lessons NATO has taught Ukraine's military instructors since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
But as the Russian missile strikes across Ukraine this week demonstrated, this is not enough. NATO defence ministers have been taking stock of the supply effort so far and debating ways to encourage the defence industry to quickly ramp up production.
"Allies have provided air defence, but we need even more. We need different types of air defence — short-range, long-range air defence — systems to take [out] ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, different systems for different tasks," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters before chairing the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"Ukraine is a big country, many cities. So we need to scale up to be able to help Ukraine defend even more cities and more territory against horrific Russian attacks against their civilian populations."
After a separate gathering of the Ukraine Contact Group — 50 nations that meet to assess Ukraine's needs and drum up equipment — U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Ukraine wants a complete air defence system to defend against aerial attack.
"What Ukraine is asking for, and what we think can be provided, is an integrated air missile defence system … designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect," Milley told reporters.
It would involve short-, medium- and long-range systems capable of firing projectiles at all altitudes.
"It's a mix of all these that deny the airspace to Russian aircraft," and missiles, Milley said. "They're trying to create a defensive system."
Putin miscalculated: Biden
Since a series of Russian strikes across Ukraine on Monday, including those that hit civilian areas, Germany has sent the first of four planned IRIS-T SLM air defence systems, while Washington said it would speed up the delivery of a promised NASAMS air defence system.
As his forces have lost ground on the battlefield since September, Putin has escalated the conflict, ordering the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, proclaiming the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he doubted Putin would use a nuclear weapon.
Putin is a "rational actor who has miscalculated significantly," Biden said in a CNN interview broadcast late Tuesday, saying he believed the Russian president wrongly expected his invading troops to be welcomed.
Asked how realistic he believed it would be for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon, Biden responded: "Well, I don't think he will."
Just last week, Biden evoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the potential for nuclear "Armageddon" when discussing the threats from Putin.
Nuclear, energy concerns
Putin has warned NATO against deeper involvement in Ukraine. In recent weeks, as power and gas bills spiral and Europe struggles to decrease its dependency on Russia for energy, apparent acts of sabotage damaged two major pipelines once meant to bring natural gas to Germany.
The Polish operator of the Druzhba — or "Friendship" — oil pipeline, one of the world's longest and which originates in Russia, said Wednesday that it had detected a leak underground near the city of Plock in central Poland. The line supplies crude to Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Austria and Germany.
In response to the incidents, Stoltenberg said NATO has "doubled our presence in the Baltic and North seas to over 30 ships, supported by maritime patrol aircraft and undersea capabilities."
Also Wednesday, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia's "attempted illegal annexation" of four Ukrainian regions and demand that Moscow immediately reverse its actions.
The vote in the 193-member world body was 143-5 with 35 abstentions, the strongest support from the General Assembly for Ukraine and against Russia of the four resolutions it has approved since Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Western nations engaged in intense behind-the-scenes lobbying ahead of the vote while Russia's ally Syria warned against isolating Moscow.
In the end, Syria, Nicaragua, North Korea and Belarus sided with Russia.
Within Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is surrounded by Russian troops, lost external power needed for vital safety systems for the second time in five days.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi, who met with Putin on Tuesday, said agency monitors at the plant — Europe's largest nuclear power facility — reported the temporary interruption in external power.
"I've been informed by our team on site that external power to #Zaporizhzhya NPP is restored," Grossi said on Twitter. "#ZNPP's operator says this morning's outage was caused by shelling damage to a far off substation, highlighting how precarious the situation is."
Ukraine's state nuclear operator Energoatom said on the Telegram social media platform that a Russian missile attack on the substation "Dniprovska" in the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region to the north was damaged, leading to the shutdown of a key communication line to the plant — prompting the diesel generators to turn on automatically.
Russia arrests 8 over Crimea bridge blast
Earlier Wednesday, Ukraine's southern command said its forces recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region, according to the southern Operational Command.
The villages of Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kamianka, Tryfonivka and Chervone in the Beryslav district were retaken as of Oct. 11, according to the spokesperson of the southern command Vladislav Nazarov.
The settlements are in one of the four regions recently annexed by Russia.
To the south, in a Russian-controlled area of the region, a powerful blast struck the city of Melitopol — sending a car flying into the air, Mayor Ivan Fedorov. There was no word on casualties.
Also Wednesday, Russia's top domestic security agency said it arrested eight people on charges of involvement in the bombing of the main bridge linking Russia to Crimea, while an official in Zaporizhzhia said Russian forces carried out more strikes there.
The Federal Security Service, known by the Russian acronym FSB, said it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over Saturday's attack that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — a crucial thoroughfare for supplies and travel whose much-ballyhooed construction under Putin cost billions.
A truck loaded with explosives blew up while driving across the bridge, killing four people and causing two sections of one of the two automobile links to collapse.
Ukrainian officials have lauded the explosion on the bridge, but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility for it.
Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast, calling it "an act of terrorism," and responded by ordering a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine.
With files from Reuters