Russia Steps Up Attacks In Ukraine After Landmark NATO Summit

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Russia pressed on with its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Thursday after NATO branded Moscow the biggest "direct threat" to Western security and agreed plans to modernise Kyiv's beleaguered armed forces.

Ukrainian authorities said they were trying to evacuate residents from the frontline eastern city of Lysychansk, the focus of Russia's attacks where about 15,000 people remained under relentless shelling.

"Fighting is going on all the time. The Russians are constantly on the offensive. There is no let-up," regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television.

In the southern Kherson region, Ukrainian forces were fighting back with artillery strikes of their own, Oleskiy Arestovych, adviser to the Ukrainian president, said in a video posted online.

At a summit on Wednesday dominated by 

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the geopolitical upheaval it has caused, NATO invited Sweden and Finland to join and pledged a seven-fold increase from 2023 in combat forces on high alert along its eastern flank.


U.S. President Joe Biden announced more land, sea and air force deployments across Europe from Spain in the west to Romania and Poland bordering Ukraine.

These included a permanent army headquarters with accompanying battalion in Poland - the first full-time U.S. deployment on NATO's eastern fringes.

"President Putin's war against Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and has created the biggest security crisis in Europe since the Second World War," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference.

The Russian invasion that began on Feb. 24 has destroyed cities, killed thousands and sent millions fleeing. Russia says it is pursuing a "special military operation" to rid Ukraine of dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of an unprovoked, imperial-style land grab.

The top U.S. intelligence official Avril Haines said on Wednesday the most likely near term scenario is a grinding conflict in which Moscow makes only incremental gains, but no breakthrough on its goal of taking most of Ukraine.

'FULL SOLIDARITY'


NATO issued a new Strategic Concept document, its first since 2010, that said a "strong independent Ukraine is vital for the stability of the Euro-Atlantic area".

To that end, NATO agreed a long-term financial and military aid package to modernise Ukraine's largely Soviet-era military.

"We stand in full solidarity with the government and the people of Ukraine in the heroic defence of their country," the communique said.

Stoltenberg said NATO had agreed to put 300,000 troops on high readiness from 2023, up from 40,000 now, under a new force model to protect an area stretching from the Baltic to the Black seas.

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