On the same day NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the security alliance, President Joe Biden said the US will increase its military presence in eastern Europe amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Upon arriving at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday, Biden announced the US would establish its first permanent headquarters in Poland, maintain an additional rotational brigade in Romania and boost its rotational deployments in the Baltic region.
The troops in Poland would represent the first permanent US forces on NATO’s eastern flank. The alliance plans to build up stocks of equipment and ammunition in the east and increase almost eightfold the size of its overall rapid-reaction force, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, by next year.
With opposition from Turkey out of the way, NATO also intends to expand to 32 welcoming nations by previously nonaligned Sweden and Finland, which have grown wary of Russian aggression. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the war had brought “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.”
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Latest developments
►In the first day of the NATO summit, allies approved a new Strategic Concept for the Alliance, describing how it will address threats and challenges to security moving forward. The document includes a statement that defines Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to allies’ security.
►Ukraine will start trading electricity with European countries this week via the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity. Ukraine was previously part of the Integrated Power System that also includes Russia and Belarus.
Ukraine announces biggest prisoner exchange with Russia since war began
The Ukrainian government announced its largest prisoner exchange of the war, with 144 soldiers returning home, according to a post on the country’s defense ministry’s Telegram account.
Of those, 95 were involved in defending the Azovstal steel plant in the devastated southern city of Mariupol, captured by Russia weeks ago. Denis Pushilin, leader of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, said both sides released the same number of soldiers.
Macron calls Russian airstrike on Ukrainian mall a ‘new war crime’
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced Russia’s fiery airstrike on a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine as a “new war crime” Tuesday and vowed the West’s support for Kyiv would not waver, saying Moscow “cannot and should not win” the war.
The strike, which officials say killed at least 18 people, was one of the “most defiant acts of terrorism in European history,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. It was part of an unusually intense barrage of Russian fire across Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv, that renewed international attention as the war drags on.
Zelenskyy also urged the UN to establish an international tribunal to investigate Russia’s action in Ukraine.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said warplanes fired missiles at a nearby depot containing Western weapons that caught fire. Ukraine officials deny the depot held weapons and say the mall itself was hit by the missile.
Deal lifts Turkish objection to Sweden, Finland joining NATO
Turkey agreed Tuesday to withdraw its objection to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, a breakthrough that bolsters the alliance amid Europe’s worst security crisis in decades following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a summit in Madrid, hailing the “historic decision.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had voiced opposition to granting the two Nordic countries membership, insisting they change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.
NATO admission requires a unanimous vote from member states, and weeks of negotiations finally paid off when the three countries’ leaders signed a joint agreement to break the impasse.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism