A beefier NATO emerges when the West confronts Russia and China

MADRID – Faced with a recently aggressive Russia, NATO leaders on Wednesday outlined a strong new vision that names Moscow as the ethe main opponent of the military alliance but also, for the first time, declares that China is a strategic “challenge”.

It was a fundamental change for an alliance born during the Cold War but which came to see post-Soviet Russia as a potential ally and did not focus on China at all.

But that was before February 24, when Russian forces deliberately crossed the border into Ukraine and Chinese leaders have not joined to the worldwide condemnation that followed.

“The deepening of the strategic partnership between the PRC and the Russian Federation and their attempts to strengthen each other to undermine the rules-based international order are contrary to our values ​​and interestsThis was stated by NATO leaders in a new mission statement issued during the Madrid summit.

The announcement came on the day that a senior US intelligence official said victory in Ukraine was not yet within Russia’s reach, the two sides said they had exchanged more than 200 POWs, and a Ukrainian official has declared:

“There are battles everywhere.”

In a series of steps at the Madrid Summit, which ends Thursday, President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders sought to respond to the Resurgent and warlike Russia of President Vladimir Putin.

Shortly before publishing the mission statement, they extended formal invitations to members Finland and SwedenNordic countries hitherto non-aligned, paving the way for the most significant enlargement of NATO in more than a decade.

“At a time when Putin has broken the peace in Europe and has attacked the very principles of the rules-based order, the United States and our allies, we will take a step forward,” Biden said.

“We are stepping up“.

NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that thousands of new troops would be deployed to eight countries on NATO’s eastern flank.

And Biden said Washington would deploy an army headquarters and a field support battalion Polonia, the first US forces permanently stationed on NATO’s eastern flank.

China offered to cold response to NATO’s new moves.

“We oppose some elements that require NATO involvement in Asia Pacific, or an Asia Pacific version of NATO based on a military alliance,” said Chinese UN Ambassador Zhang Jun.

“The outdated script of the Cold War not to be recreated in Asia Pacific. . The upheavals in some parts of the world must not be allowed in Asia Pacific. “

For his part, Putin has kept his focus on Central Asia, where he has been on a visit to bolster support for Moscow, all the more important now that the West has moved to make Russia a pariah nation.

In a seemingly calculated counter-program of the Kremlin, the Russian president attended his own summit:

a meeting a Turkmenistan of the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea.

He flew to Turkmenistan on Wednesday at the start of Tajikistan, the second leg of a two-day trip that took him out of Russia for the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine in February.

It was also his first overseas overnight trip since the start of the pandemic.

In a short speech to other leaders at the summit, including the presidents of Kazakhstan, Iran and Azerbaijan, Putin discussed trade, tourism, fisheries and environmental issues, but did not say not a word on NATO or Ukraine.

But later that day, meeting with reporters after the summit ended, Putin he laughed the importance of the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, issuing a warning.

“If the military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there,” he said, “we will have to respond in the same way and create the same threats against the territories from which the threats against us are created,” Putin said.

“It’s obvious. What, don’t you understand?

Ukrainian leaders praised the NATO news.

“We welcome a clear stance on Russia, as well as the accession of Finland and Sweden,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.

“An equally strong and active stance on Ukraine will help protect Euro-Atlantic security and stability.”

But it was by no means clear that this week’s events could help Ukraine turn the tide of a war in which its forces continue to be outnumbered and unarmed.

Putin appears indifferent to foreign convictions and sanctions, as his forces use their superior artillery to bomb Ukrainian cities to submission.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian and Western officials said Moscow was sending thousands more troops and heavy weapons to eastern Ukraine as it fights to claim the last piece of sovereign Ukrainian territory in the eastern Luhansk province.

“There are battles everywhere,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of the Lugansk Regional Military Administration.

“Everywhere, the enemy is trying to break through the defense line. They are trying to destroy all the settlements, only to enter the territory, not the settlement ”.

He said the Russians were using rocket-propelled grenade launchers, artillery, mortars, tanks, bombers and long-range missiles to clean the earth of life so that his infantry could advance.

The tactics of scorched earth they allowed the Russians to move closer and closer to Ukrainian positions within the city of Lysychansk in Luhansk province, part of Moscow’s push to reclaim the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

But even with the hefty spending on ammunition, earnings have been slow.

Russian officials have rejected allegations of atrocities against civilians in Ukraine, insisting that they are limiting their attacks to legitimate military targets.

But across the country, civilian deaths are increasing by the day in small-scale attacks that result in a handful of lives at a time.

Even in cities and towns far from the fiercest fighting of the war, civilian casualties have steadily increased.

“They could target military facilities, but they mainly target civilian infrastructure,” Vitaly Kim, the governor of the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“I think they are trying to scare the local population and demoralize our military.”

In his first public update in more than a month, Biden administration director of national intelligence Avril D. Haines said Wednesday that Putin appeared to continue aiming to kidnap the most of Ukraine, but that Russian forces would make a breakthrough in the country’s east in the short term remained unlikely.

The consensus in US intelligence agencies is that the war is likely to continue for a long time, Haines said.

With no sign that a ceasefire may be near, Ukraine has announced the largest POW exchange since Russia launched its invasion, including scores of Ukrainian soldiers defending Mariupol, the southern port city that became a Russian siege. of the Ukrainian challenge.

Although andexchanges was shrouded in secrecy, Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist forces in the Donetsk area of ​​Donbas, said that 144 Russian forces and delegates were returned in exchange for 144 Ukrainians.

LNATO expansion It came after lengthy negotiations with Turkey, an alliance member who had raised objections.

Although it was still unclear on Wednesday what exactly convinced the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoganto change his posture, clues emerged.

Some concerned Turkey’s concerns Kurdish separatists.

Ann Linde, the Swedish foreign minister, said Sweden and Finland have formally agreed not to provide support to Kurds or other organizations that could harm Turkey’s security, with weapons or other aid.

“We don’t even do that today, but now it’s explicitly written,” Linde told Swedish radio.

. She said his country will continue to provide humanitarian support to Kurds and others in northeastern Syria.

Both Sweden and Finland will also lift an informal arms embargo on Turkey imposed in 2019 following Turkey’s intervention in northern Syria.

As new NATO members, Linde said, both countries would have “new engagements with allies, and this also applies to Turkey.”

And the United States on Wednesday signaled a new willingness to sell upgraded F-16 fighters to Turkey, moving closer to meeting the ally’s longstanding demand.

US officials insisted the change was unrelated to NATO expansion.

The reports were provided by Anton Troianovski from Paris; Michael Schwirtz of Athens, Greece; Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia; Megan Specia of Lviv, Ukraine; Julian E. Barnes of Washington; and Marc Santora from Warsaw, Poland.

c.2022 The New York Times Company