Brussels: NATO leaders will send equipment to Ukraine to help the war-torn nation defend its population against potential Russian chemical weapon attacks amid fears of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “nuclear sabre-rattling”.
The leaders of the world’s most powerful nations will meet in at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday to address Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine, as the alliance prepares to bolster troops along its eastern flank, deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
The site of a rocket explosion where a shopping mall used to be in Kyiv.Credit:Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday morning (AEDT) that the group was expected to agree to provide Ukraine with “additional support”, including equipment to “protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats” as well as cyber security assistance.
It would be the first time NATO member states have sent supplies to Ukraine specifically to counter weapons of mass destruction amid rising fears in western capitals that Moscow could use them.
“We are concerned about the use of chemical or biological weapons,” Stoltenberg said. “Any use of chemical weapons would totally change the nature of the conflict … and have far-reaching consequences.”
Since Putin launched an invasion on February 25, NATO has readied 140,000 troops in the region and mobilised a massive war chest of advanced military equipment.
The alliance, which has more than 140 warships and 130 aircraft on heightened alert, has warned Moscow that an attack on a NATO member state would be viewed as an attack on all member nations. Ukraine, which has sought NATO membership since 2002, is bordered by four NATO allies.
US President Joe Biden will attend the summit as well as meetings with European Union and G7 allies aiming to increase support for Kyiv and tighten the financial squeeze on Russia’s economy with more sanctions. More than 100,000 of NATO’s troops are American.
Biden is also expected to travel to Poland which is dealing with almost 2 million refugees who have fled the conflict.
He warned on Monday that the world was at “inflection point”, with his administration sharing “deep concerns” about Russia’s “alignment” with China, as intelligence officials said that the Kremlin had turned to Beijing for economic and military aid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Moscow on Monday.Credit:Kremlin/AP
“There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it,” Biden said. “And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”
He said ahead of his visit there was a “real threat” Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Biden is also expected to announce further sanctions against Moscow while pressing Western leaders to join in on even more aggressive economic actions.
Russia has denounced reports that the US and its Western allies were pushing to expel it from the G20 meeting in Indonesia later this year, saying Putin still intended to attend. Russia’s embassy in Jakarta said the reaction of the West was “absolutely disproportional”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the summit video as he hailed his troops for taking back territory from Russian forces.
The Ukrainian military has mounted a series of limited counter-attacks in recent days, claiming to retake Makariv on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv, as well as pushing back occupying forces around the southern city of Kherson.
In a regular overnight address, Zelensky praised his forces who had “defeated” and dislodged Russian soldiers around Kherson while warning that Russia’s brutal shelling meant there was “nothing left” of Mariupol, a port city that has borne the brunt of the war.
Russian troops are attempting to grind down resistance in Mariupol to consolidate territory along Ukraine’s coast, but Ukrainian and western officials said the defence of the city continued.
A UK intelligence update on Wednesday noted that while the battlefield across Ukraine remained largely static, Russian forces were “likely conducting a period of reorganisation before resuming large-scale offensive operations”.
The UK Ministry of Defence said Putin’s troops were “attempting to envelop Ukrainian forces in the east of the country” by advancing from the direction of Kharkiv in the north and Mariupol in the south.
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