Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says “the reality is that we are seeing the start already” of a new Russian offensive in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin is sending “thousands and thousands more troops”, accepting “a very high rate of casualties” and taking “big losses” but putting pressure on the Ukrainians, he says.
“What Russia lacks in quality, they try to compensate in quantity,” he says, which he says highlights how urgent it is for the west to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
The faster Kyiv can be supplied with weapons, ammunition and spare parts, fuel, the more lives can be saved, he says.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said she expects all Nato members, including Turkey and Hungary, to ratify Finland and Sweden’s bids to join the alliance “without further delay”.
The accession of Finland and Sweden to Nato would strengthen the alliance as a whole, Baerbock told a news conference in Helsinki with her Finnish counterpart, Pekka Haavisto.
The two Nordic countries sought Nato membership shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year and have said they want to join “hand in hand”, but while most member states have given the applications the green light, Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify them.
Turkey has said it could approve Finland’s membership application ahead of Sweden’s, but Ankara wants Stockholm to take a tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is considered a terror group by Turkey and the EU, and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, and defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, met Polish and foreign instructors intensively training Ukrainian troops to operate German-made Leopard 2 tanks.
Duda and Błaszczak also watched Leopard 2 training at a military base and test range in Świętoszów, in south-west Poland, AP reports.
Ukrainian tank crews from units fighting in the east of the country are being trained up to 10 hours a day, including weekends, the Polish military said. Training is also being held in Germany.
Duda said he hoped the German-made tanks, which some European countries and Canada have offered Ukraine, would help Ukrainian forces “in a much efficient way to defeat the enemy”.
He said the Ukrainian trainees have come straight from the frontline.
You can see in their faces that these people have gone through terrible things, but they are determined to defend their homeland.
Germany has pledged at least 178 Leopard 1 tanks and 14 Leopard 2 tanks. Poland has pledged 14 Leopard 2s as well as more than 300 of its Soviet-era T-72 tanks and modernized PT-91 tanks.