Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – Finnish leaders called for NATO membership on Thursday and Sweden can do the same in a few days, with a historic shuffling across the continent, two and a half months after the Russian President Vladimir Putin is Ukraine. The horror of Moscow’s neighbors.
The Kremlin responded by warning that it would be forced to take alternative “technical-military” measures.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Russian forces attacked areas in central, northern and eastern Ukraine, including the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, as an offensive to seize the industrial region of Donbass, while Ukraine recaptured several cities and village in the northeast.
The first trial of a Russian soldier since the start of the war will open in Kiev on Friday. A arrested 21-year-old member of the tank unit was accused of shooting a civilian sitting on a bicycle at the start of the war.
“It was caused by you (Russia). “You look in the mirror,” Finnish President Saul Niinisto said this week.
While still being considered by the country’s parliament, the statement means Finland will definitely apply – and be accepted – even though the process could take several months to complete. Sweden is also considering entering under NATO protection.
This represents a significant change in the security landscape in Europe: Sweden avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, while Finland gained neutrality after the defeat of the Soviet Union in World War II.
After the invasion, public opinion in both countries changed significantly in favor of NATO membership, raising fears among countries on Russia’s side that they were next.
Such an expansion of the alliance would leave Russia surrounded by NATO countries in the Baltic and Arctic, and for Putin, hoping that NATO would split and retreat to Europe, otherwise would be an obstacle.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was a handshake between Finland and Sweden.
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Moscow would “be forced to take retaliatory military-technical measures and other measures to counter emerging threats to its national security”.
NATO’s supply of weapons and other military support to Ukraine has been crucial in preventing the invasion of surprisingly successful Kiev, and the Kremlin warned in frightening words on Thursday that the aid could lead to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. .
“There is always the risk of turning such a conflict into a full -fledged nuclear war, a scenario that would be catastrophic for everyone,” said Dmitry Medvedev, vice president of the Russian Security Council.
Although Russia’s advance in the Donbas was slow, its forces gained ground and captured some villages.
Four civilians were killed on Thursday in three communities in the Donetsk region that is part of Donbass, the region’s governor said.
The British Defense Ministry said Russia’s focus on the Donbas had left the remaining troops around the northeastern city of Kharkov vulnerable to a counterattack by Ukrainian forces, who recaptured several towns and villages in around the city.
At least two civilians were killed Thursday in Russian attacks outside Kharkiv, according to local authorities in Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The attacks also damaged the building, which houses the humanitarian aid department, municipal offices and hospitals, Vyacheslav Zadorenko, mayor of the suburban city of Derhach, wrote in a Telegram post.
None of the facilities are “related to military infrastructure,” Zadorenko said.
The fighting in the East has pushed thousands of Ukrainians out of their homes.
“It’s bad there now. “We’re going on rockets,” said Tatiana Kravstova, who left the town of Siversky with her 8-year-old son Artyom on a bus heading to the central city of Dnipro. “I don’t know where they’re aiming, but they’re pointing at civilians.”
Ukraine also claims that Russian forces fired artillery and grenade launchers at Ukrainian troops around Zaporizhia, a refuge for civilians fleeing Mariupol, and attacked the northern regions of Chernigov and Sumy.
The Ukrainian military says at least three people were killed overnight in air strikes near Chernigov in northern Ukraine. Russian troops reportedly fired rockets at the Novhorod-Siversky school and students ’dormitory, destroying several other buildings, including private homes.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky condemned the attacks in an evening speech in the country.
“Of course, the Russian state is in a state where any education is just on the way. But what can be achieved by destroying Ukrainian schools?” All Russian commanders who issue such orders have only pain and no cure. “
Noting that Thursday is International Nurses ’Day, Zelensky said the Russian military has destroyed 570 medical facilities and completely destroyed 101 hospitals since the aggression began on Feb. 24.
Twelve Russian rockets hit an oil refinery and other infrastructure in the central Ukrainian industrial center of Kremenchuk on Thursday, the region’s interim governor Dmitry Lunin wrote in a Telegram post. In early April, he said, the processing plant, which was the last fully operational in Ukraine at the time, was closed due to the attack.
In the southern port of Mariupol, which has largely been reduced to rubble with little food, water or medicine, or what the mayor calls a “medieval ghetto”, Ukrainian warriors continue to occupy the Azovstal steel mill, their last stronghold. . Fighting in the city.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said talks were underway in Russia to free 38 seriously injured Ukrainian defenders from the factory. He said Ukraine expects to exchange 38 “significant” Russian POWs.
Jessica Fish in Bakhmut, David Keaton in Kiev, Yura Karmanau in Lvov, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Yari Tanner in Helsinki and other AP staff around the world.
Source: Huffpost
