NATO to provide cyber security, equipment support to Ukraine

NATO has decided to provide cyber security and equipment support to Ukraine against biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear threats, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said

“Our top military commander … has activated NATO’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense elements and allies are deploying additional chemical and biological and nuclear defences,” Stoltenberg said after an extraordinary summit of NATO leaders. “So we are taking measures both to support Ukraine and also to defend ourselves,” he added.

The Ukrainian president cranked up the pressure on NATO leaders Thursday for “military assistance without limitations,” telling them that Ukrainian forces are “in a gray area, between the West and Russia, defending our common values.”

“This is the scariest thing during a war – not to have clear answers to requests for help!” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an emotional video address to NATO leaders gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit.

Zelenskyy urged NATO to provide Ukraine with “1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks” and said: “When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.”

“I just want you to know – the Alliance can still prevent deaths of Ukrainians from Russian strikes, from the Russian occupation … by providing us with all the weapons we’re in need of.”

The appeal came as international efforts to make Russia pay for its aggression and to contain Europe’s biggest security crisis since World War II shifted their focus to Brussels. The Belgian capital became a flurry of diplomatic activity as U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders huddled for a day-long series of talks on the war’s repercussions, including the possibility of more sanctions on Russia, how to deal with soaring energy costs and the growing needs of Ukrainian refugees, and how to stiffen defenses in eastern European nations alarmed about Russian aggression.

Opening the NATO summit, Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is “determined to continue to impose costs on Russia to bring about the end of this brutal war.”

Soon afterward, NATO countries extended Stoltenberg’s mandate by a year to allow him to continue leading the military alliance’s response to Russia’s aggression.

Stoltenberg had been due to leave the post in September and had already been appointed as the next head of Norway’s central bank. The Norwegian government said on Thursday that the deputy governor will be in charge until he is free to take over.

Russia unleashed its invasion Feb. 24 but instead of swiftly toppling Ukraine’s government, its forces are bogged down in a grinding military campaign and its economy is laboring under punishing international sanctions.

“This is a month now,” Zelenskyy said Thursday in a separate address to Sweden’s parliament, the latest of many to whom the Ukrainian leader has pleaded for help. “We have not seen a destruction of this scale since World War II.”

After a month of fighting, Western analysts say Ukrainian forces need to stock up the weapons again that have helped them slow and repel Russian advances. Both sides claimed Thursday to have inflicted more blows. Ukraine’s navy said it sank a ship that had been used to resupply the Russian campaign with armored vehicles. Russia claimed to have taken a town, Izyum, in eastern Ukraine after heavy fighting.

But in many areas, Ukrainian forces appear to have battled Russian troops to a stalemate, an outcome that seemed unlikely when Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his invasion force.