Russia announces the destruction of command centers and the downing of Ukrainian drones

NATO accuses Putin of using winter as a "weapon of war"

Stoltenberg with NATO foreign ministers in a group photo during their meeting in Bucharest.

Reuters

NATO Secretary-General (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday that the members of the alliance will intensify their aid to Ukraine at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon of war after the failure of his forces on the battlefield, while Russia announced the destruction of command centers and the shooting down of Ukrainian drones.

"I think we all see satellite images in which Europe is bright and Ukraine is dark, so there is a huge task to reconstruct all of this," Stoltenberg said.

"President Putin is trying to use winter as a weapon of war (against Ukraine)," Stoltenberg told reporters in Bucharest.

His comments came before a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest.

Stoltenberg said the meeting would serve as a platform to drum up more support for Ukraine.

The meeting will focus on ramping up military aid to Ukraine such as air defense systems and ammunition, even as diplomats acknowledge problems with supply and production capacity, but they will also discuss non-lethal aid.

Part of that non-lethal aid, which includes goods such as fuel, medical supplies and winterization equipment, has been delivered through a NATO aid package that members can contribute to and which Stoltenberg aims to expand.

Several ministers from the 30-nation alliance echoed Stoltenberg's comments.

Finland and Sweden participate in the meeting alongside the member states of the alliance, as they look forward to securing their full membership in the alliance, pending the ratification of Turkey and Hungary.

“The coming months will be a big test for all of us,” Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Keser said.

For Ukraine it is an existential question, for us it is a moral question.

We must continue to help Ukraine as long as it is necessary.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned his citizens of new Russian attacks this week that could be as severe as last week's attacks, which were the worst yet, and left millions without heat, water or electricity.

Russia acknowledges targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, but denies that it intended to harm civilians.

"It's going to be a terrible winter for Ukraine, so we are stepping up our support so that it can survive," said a senior European diplomat.

Germany, which holds the G7 presidency, also arranged a meeting of the group of rich nations with some partners on the sidelines of NATO talks, as it looks for ways to speed up the rebuilding of Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

A senior US State Department official told reporters that Washington is working with US companies and European countries to identify equipment that can help restore high-voltage power transmission stations damaged by Russian missile attacks.

The official did not specify the type, form or value of the aid.

On the military side, the alliance continues to pressure arms manufacturers to speed up production, but a second diplomat warned that there are growing supply capacity problems.

NATO ministers will also discuss Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, but they are likely to only underscore the alliance's open-door policy as NATO membership still seems a long way off for the war-torn country.

"We made it clear that Ukraine would become a member," Stoltenberg said.

I expect the members to confirm this position.”

"But the main focus now is to support Ukraine.

We are in the midst of a war, and therefore we must not do anything that could undermine the unity of the members in terms of providing military, humanitarian and financial support to Ukraine.

On the field level, the regional defense headquarters in the "Donetsk People's Republic" announced yesterday that the republic's forces liberated three residential areas with fire support from the Russian forces.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that its forces thwarted attempts by the Ukrainian army to carry out attacks on a number of axes, confirming the killing of about 200 Ukrainian soldiers and the destruction of missile systems.

The ministry indicated that "nine Ukrainian drones were shot down in several regions of Lugansk and Donetsk," adding that "a weapons depot of missiles and artillery of Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhia was destroyed."

And Russian media quoted a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, as saying in a press statement yesterday that the air-space forces and the missile forces destroyed 10 command centers of the Ukrainian army yesterday.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news