NATO

West promises more aid for Ukraine, but pledges fall short of Kyiv's calls for a no-fly zone, an embargo on Russian oil.

“The most logical place to move forward is in oil and coal.” “Not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. “One percent of all your planes, 1 percent of all your tanks,” Zelenskyy asked members of the NATO alliance. “We can’t just buy those. “Our measures remain preventive, proportionate, and non-escalatory,” the alliance said in a statement, calling the Russian invasion “the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades” and urging Putin to immediately end the war and withdraw his troops from Ukraine. The US president said the “single most important thing” for the West and its allies was to stay unified against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

NATO leaders met today on the one-month anniversary of Russia's unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine to reiterate our strong support for the.

Between now and the NATO summit in June, we will develop plans for additional forces and capabilities to strengthen NATO’s defenses. Immediately after Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine, we activated NATO’s defensive plans and the NATO Response Force. The United States has surged thousands of forces and additional capabilities to Europe, and we have welcomed the new deployments made by our Allies. Today’s establishment of four new battle groups in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary is a strong signal that we will collectively defend and protect every inch of NATO territory. We will adopt an updated Strategic Concept to ensure NATO is ready to meet any challenge in the new and more dangerous security environment.

Coming face to face with European allies, almost exactly one month since Russia's invasion began, US President Joe Biden was determined to send a message of ...

And while the US is sending billions of dollars' worth of military equipment to support the Ukrainian army, requests for a no-fly zone have been repeatedly refused out of fear it would bring the West into direct conflict with Russia and risk a broader war. "The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use." "And both the United States and our allies have a responsibility to respond." "And as a result of that, it is critical that they continue to have these meetings, urgent meetings, to make sure everybody's on the same page. The US President has repeatedly warned Russia could be planning the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, describing it as a "real threat" as he departed Washington for Europe. "Putin is getting exactly the opposite of what he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine."

By invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has catalyzed some major shifts. Germany, long averse to military spending, has decided to up its defense ...

In Thursday’s statements from NATO heads of state, the 30 countries called on China “to abstain from supporting Russia’s war effort in any way, and to refrain from any action that helps Russia circumvent sanctions.” But some see NATO’s response — and that of non-NATO European countries alongside it — as a sign that concerted action is possible. By saying, as President George W. Bush did overtly at a NATO summit in 2008, that Ukraine could and would join NATO, but not providing Ukraine with a membership action plan and a timetable to join the alliance, Ukraine has been left unprotected. There remains a bigger global agenda that the US must take on — countering climate change, preparing for future pandemics, and strengthening the internal dynamics of democracies that are backsliding — that can’t be totally put aside by the current war. “I don’t see it as defining the next era comprehensively the way that the Cold War defined the era from the late ’40s on.” Given these circumstances, critics of NATO wonder whether NATO is the best forum for ensuring European security. NATO has been unified with providing Ukraine with weapons, sanctioning Russia, and beginning to address the new influx of refugees. He explains that while “one can dress it up in all kinds of multilateral clothing,” NATO has always been an overwhelmingly American operation. And it reveals a fundamental truth of the organization: It’s an alliance meant to counter a great power adversary, for good and bad. “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Macron said in 2019. “Today’s establishment of four new battle groups in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary is a strong signal that we will collectively defend and protect every inch of NATO territory,” Biden said. The trip isn’t just about NATO. Biden is meeting with leaders of the European Union and the G7 countries.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns any use of chemical or nuclear weapons would have “far-reaching consequences” for the Kremlin. Western allies are divided about how explicit to be about what NATO will or will not do to help Ukraine. There were ...

Ukraine asked for a per cent, one per cent of all your tanks to be given or sold to us!” Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. “We are very conscious of what he is asking for. The leaders of 30 western nations agreed to substantially deploy more forces along Ukraine’s borders, including more jets to strengthen its integrated air and missile defences. I indicated he would be putting himself at significant jeopardy if he did that moving forward,” Biden said. “I think that China as [a] member of the [UN] Security Council can’t do anything else than to be a power of mediation and moderation,” Macron said.” He said that he “wants to believe” that China “will not participate in any escalation”.

A no-fly zone in Ukraine, meant to protect civilians, might fail to do so while escalating the war.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. The Biden administration should remain resolute in rejecting such proposals, which, although presented as half measures to avoid direct war between the United States and Russia, are in fact tantamount to exactly that war. Given the range of some of Russia’s surface-to-air missiles, such as the S-400, some of the defenses covering Ukraine could even be located in Russia. Suppressing them could therefore require NATO to attack Russian forces on Russian territory. They’re poised to get even more lethal: After Mr. Zelensky’s address to the U.S. Congress, the White House announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine — adding to the anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons already provided — including some 800 Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft systems and switchblade drones, capable of both observation and attacks on targets such as Russian artillery. At the NATO summit this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine lamented what he viewed as the failure of the United States and its allies to help establish a “no-fly zone in any way” over his nation. So far, that does not appear to have crossed Moscow’s redlines for military retaliation against the United States. Although difficult to verify, according to Ukraine, its forces have destroyed 101 Russian planes and 124 helicopters as of March 23. The purpose of a no-fly zone would be to keep Russia’s planes from bombing civilians. Despite the egregiousness of such violence, a U.S.- or NATO-imposed no-fly zone over Ukraine is not the way to stop Russia’s aggression. A similar situation could play out in Ukraine — only with the added risk of escalation. This would involve additional NATO airstrikes on Russian forces on the ground, such as surface-to-air missiles and radar facilities. In just over a month of war, Ukrainians have suffered tremendously from horrific attacks by Russian missiles, artillery and aircraft.