After over 200 years of being a nonaligned nation, Sweden will join neighboring Finland in applying for membership in NATO, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced Monday.
Andersson called it “a historic change in our country’s security policy” as she addressed lawmakers, most of whom have expressed support for seeking entry into NATO. The formal application is expected later Monday.
“We will inform NATO that we want to become a member of the alliance,” she said. “Sweden needs formal security guarantees that come with membership in NATO.”
In addressing NATO expanding to include Finland and Sweden, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Russia has no problems with those states,” according to state-owned Tass news agency. But Russia’s “reaction will depend on the nature of the threats that will emerge for us,” he added. Putin has cited Ukraine’s desire to join NATO as one of the reasons for the invasion.
Also Monday, McDonald’s said it has started the process of selling its Russian interests, which include 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people. It is the latest corporation to announce a withdrawal from Russia following its attack on Ukraine.
USE TODAY ON TELEGRAM:Join our Russia-Ukraine war channel to receive the latest updates straight to your inbox
Latest developments:
►Sweden’s defense minister is meeting Monday in Washington with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the Nordic nation’s Defense Ministry announced.
►Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said Sunday that 227 children have died and over 400 have been injured since the invasion began.
Russia agrees to cease-fire for injured troops at Azovstal steel plant
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday said there is an agreement for injured Ukrainian troops at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to leave the plant for medical treatment under a local cease-fire.
The Defense Ministry on Monday said in a statement that following talks with Ukrainian representatives at the site a so-called humanitarian corridor would be organized to transport wounded troops to a medical facility in the town of Novoazovsk. That town has been held by Russia-backed separatists since before the wider invasion of Ukrainian territory in February.
There was no word on whether the wounded would be considered prisoners of war.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Ukrainian side. It was not clear how many wounded Ukrainians might leave the site and if any had so far done so.
–Associated Press
Poland may help export Ukraine’s grains
WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s agriculture minister said Monday that Ukraine’s grain exports could be routed through Poland as long as Russia’s war prevents them from departing Black Sea ports.
Henryk Kowalczyk, the agriculture minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke in Warsaw alongside US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Ukraine’s agriculture secretary and the European Union’s commission for agriculture, who is Polish.
Ukraine is a bread basket whose exports to world markets have been disrupted, threatening to exacerbate food shortages, hunger and inflation across the world.
Vilsack denounced Russia’s theft of Ukraine’s grain and its use of hunger as a tool of war. He said the US would do what it could to prevent Russia from profiting from the theft.
Kowalczyk said that Poland’s ports on the Baltic Sea are prepared to be put to use to transport Ukraine’s grain abroad.
–Associated Press
American support for US efforts in Ukraine remains strong: poll
Americans are holding steady in their support of US efforts to back Ukraine in its war against Russia, a new Monmouth University poll out Monday finds.
Over three-quarters of those polled back the economic sanctions imposed on Moscow, just a few ticks down from a poll in March, 77% now versus 81% then. The US ban on Russian gas and oil imports holds strong support across political leanings at 78%.
As the US continues to send military equipment to Ukraine to repel Russian forces, 77% of those polled support the action, with 88% of Democrats approving, 77% of Republicans and 70% of independents, the poll found.
Before the Feb. 24 invasion, the Pentagon deployed troops to Europe to support NATO allies. Now, 66% of Americans still support that move, similar to shortly after the war began, at 69%.
– Katie Wadington
PUTIN’S FAMILY:US sanctions target Putin’s Russian family, but a larger shadow family may remain
Pentagon: Russia gains a little, loses a little in Ukraine
Heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces continues in the eastern Donbas region, with Russia making incremental gains over the weekend, according to a senior Defense Department official.
Ukrainian forces continue to kill and wound Russian troops and destroy their equipment on a daily basis, said the official, who discussed battlefield intelligence on condition of anonymity. Of the 90 US howitzer cannons sent to Ukraine, 74 are shelling Russian forces, the official said.
British intelligence assessments released Sunday indicated Russia has lost one-third of the ground forces it assembled for the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, and also said the Russian offensive in the east is significantly behind schedule. Russian losses of equipment such as temporary bridges and surveillance drones have further hindered their advance. Significant Russian advances are unlikely over the next month, the assessment concluded.
The US Defense official declined to peg the percentage of Russian losses but noted that President Vladimir Putin had deployed 80% of Russia’s ground combat forces for the fight in Ukraine. That amounted to 150 Russian battalions. On Monday, Russia had 106 of the battalions inside Ukraine with very few on the border, the official said. Each Russian battalion tactical group has about 700 to 1,000 troops.
In other developments, Russia fired about six missiles in the last 24 hours at a major training center near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the official said. The strikes, likely fired from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea, caused little damage.
Near Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian troops away from the city in Ukraine’s northeast, the official said. The Russians have retreated to within 2 miles of their country’s border.
– Tom Vanden Brook
McDonald’s says running a business in Russia ‘is no longer tenable’
In announcing it would sell its businesses in Russia because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, American fast-food giant McDonald’s said operating in Russia “is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values.”
The company temporarily closed its stores in early March but still paid employees. McDonald’s now seeks to have a Russian buyer hire its workers and pay them until the sale closes. McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in what was then the Soviet Union in 1991.
McDonald’s will become one of the first restaurant companies to remove its entire business from Russia. Up until now, many firms had resisted a full shutdown because of employee welfare, but the overarching issue of the war held too much weight.
–Scott Gleeson
GOP senators visit Sweden, Finland
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with fellow Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming visited Sweden and Finland on Monday, following a weekend in eastern Europe.
“It was a special honor to visit both these strong, proud nations during the exact days when both countries’ governments were concluding their deliberations and preparing to formally move forward with joining NATO,” McConnell said in a statement issued Monday as the group returned to the US
McConnell said the nations’ applications for NATO membership have his support. The senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday.
Belarusian troops mass at Ukraine border
Belarus has deployed forces, including special operations and air defenses, to the border of Ukraine, possibly in an effort to keep Ukrainian troops occupied there so they cannot fight Russians in the Donbas region, according to a new assessment from the British Ministry of Defense on Monday.
“Despite early speculation, to date Belarusian forces have not been directly involved in the conflict,” the ministry said on Twitter.
Belarus served as a staging area before Russia’s invasion in February. Moscow continues to use Belarus as a launchpad for missile strikes and sorties.
“Belarusian President (Aleksandr) Lukashenko is likely balancing support for Russia’s invasion with a desire to avoid direct military participation with the risk of Western sanctions, Ukrainian retaliation and possible dissatisfaction in the Belarusian military,” the ministry said.
– Katie Wadington
UKRAINE WAR EXPLAINED:Evacuations, accusations and denials: Key events in Russia’s war in Ukraine in 5 graphics
Russian military offensive ‘losing momentum’ in Ukraine, NATO official says
Almost three months after shocking the world by invading UkraineRussia’s military advancement in Ukraine is “losing momentum” and “not going as planned,” according to NATO officials.
“The brutal invasion (by) Russia is losing momentum,” NATO Deputy-Secretary General Mircea Geoana told reporters in Berlin. “We know that with the bravery of the Ukrainian people and army, and with our help, Ukraine can win this war.”
Top NATO diplomats, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met Sunday in Berlin to discuss added assistance to Ukraine.
While Moscow lost ground on the diplomatic front, Russian forces also failed to make territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said it held off Russian offensives in the east, and Western military officials said the campaign Moscow launched there after its forces failed to seize the capital, Kyiv, has slowed to a snail’s pace.
Will Putin use a nuclear weapon?
From nearly the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has teased the use of a nuclear weapon.
But most political scientists, nuclear arms experts, Western officials and seasoned Kremlin watchers say it’s highly unlikely he would detonate a nuclear weapon to break an impasse over Russia’s stalled offensive in Ukraine, now in its third month.
“If the conflict in Ukraine essentially remains an overt one between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with the West playing more of a proxy role, if we stay where we are today in terms of Western involvement in the conflict, I see no likelihood at all, said Dmitri Trenin, until recently director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
Read more on Putin’s strategy here.
– Kim Hjelmgaard
Contributing: The Associated Press
feeds.feedblitz.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism