At least 21 people were killed and dozens wounded early Friday when Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a resort near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukrainian authorities said, a day after Russian troops abandoned positions on a strategic island in a major setback to the Kremlin’s invasion.

According to Ukraine’s Security Service, 38 other people were hospitalised with injuries, including six children and a pregnant lady. According to Ukrainian emergency officials, the apartment building included the majority of the victims.

With its combat forces concentrated in the industrial Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, Russia has increased the number of missile strikes across the nation by more than twofold over the previous two weeks, more than half of which have been launched by ineffective missiles from the Soviet period. “We came here to the site, assessed the situation together with emergency workers and locals, and together helped those who survived. And those who unfortunately died. We helped to carry them away,” said Oleksandr Abramov, who lives nearby and had rushed to the scene when he heard the blast.

Also read | New ‘iron curtain’ descending between Russia and West, says defence minister

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odesa regional administration, said 21 people had been confirmed killed, including a 12-year-old boy. Among the fatalities was an employee of the Children`s Rehabilitation Center set up by Ukraine`s neighbour Moldova in the resort. The regional governor said the missiles had been fired from the direction of the Black Sea. The Kremlin denied targeting civilians.

Also read | WHO calls for ‘urgent’ action in Europe to contain monkeypox spread

“I would like to remind you of the president`s words that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

LONG-RANGE ATTACKS INTENSIFY

In his nightly video address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced the strike on the apartments and seaside site as “conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terror and not some sort of error or a coincidental missile strike.” The strike on Serhiivka took place shortly after Russia pulled its troops off Snake Island, a strategically important outcrop about 140 km (85 miles) southeast of Odesa that it seized on the war`s first day. Chief of Ukraine`s General Staff Valeriy Zaluzhny accused Russia of failing to abide by its assertions that it had left Snake Island as a “gesture of good will”. On his Telegram channel, Zaluzhny said two Russian warplanes had taken off from a base in Crimea and bombed targets on the island on Friday evening. He posted a video of what he said was the attack. Reuters had no way of confirming the video or the Russian action. There was no immediate Russian comment. Earlier this week, Russia struck a crowded shopping mall in central Ukraine, killing at least 19 people. Kyiv says Moscow has intensified its long-range missile attacks, hitting civilian targets far from the frontline. Russia says it has been aiming at military sites. Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Russia calls the invasion a “special operation” to root out nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say it is an unprovoked war of aggression. In southern Ukraine, Russian forces have occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe`s largest, since March. On Friday, Ukraine`s nuclear power operator said it had re-established its connection to surveillance systems there that had been cut off. Communications have been lost twice since March and the U.N.`s atomic watchdog wants to inspect the plant.

FOOD SUPPLY

Russia forces had used Snake Island to control the northwestern Black Sea and impose a blockade on Ukraine, one of the world`s biggest grain exporters. Moscow denies it is to blame for a food crisis, which it says is caused by Western sanctions hurting its own exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin met the president of Indonesia on Thursday and spoke by phone on Friday to the prime minister of India, promising both major food importers that Russia would remain a big supplier of grain. Ukraine has accused Russia of stealing grain from the territories that Russian forces have seized since its invasion. It said a Russian-flagged cargo ship, the Zhibek Zholy, had left the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk with a cargo of Ukrainian grain. Kyiv requested that Turkey detain the vessel, according to a Ukrainian official and document seen by Reuters. A Russian-installed official said on Thursday that after a stoppage of several months the first cargo ship had left Berdyansk port but he did not name the Zhibek Zholy. The Kremlin has previously denied stealing grain and did not reply to requests for comment on Friday.

NO GAS, ELECTRICITY, WATER

Russia`s stepped up campaign of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities coincides with its forces grinding out success on the battlefield in the east, with the aim of forcing Ukraine to cede Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Moscow has been on the verge of capturing Luhansk since taking the city of Sievierodonetsk last week after some of the heaviest fighting of the war. Ukraine`s last bastion in Luhansk is the city of Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets river, which is close to being encircled under Russian artillery barrages. In Russian-occupied Sievierodonetsk, residents emerged from basements to sift through the rubble of their city. “Almost all the city infrastructure is destroyed. We are living without gas, electricity, and water since May,” Sergei Oleinik, 65, told Reuters. More weapons were needed in both eastern and southern Ukraine, said Zelenskiy, as the Pentagon announced the United States was sending two NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems, four additional counter-artillery radars and ammunition as part of its latest arms package.

“We have worked very hard to have these supplied,” Zelenskiy said.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

KREMENCHUK – France’s president 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 killed at least 18 people in the central city of Kremenchuk, came as leaders from the Group of Seven nations met in Europe. 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.

Speaking at the end of the G-7 summit in Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to address that concern, vowing that the seven leading industrialized democracies would support Ukraine and maintain sanctions against Russia “as long as necessary, and with the necessary intensity.”

“Russia cannot and should not win,” he said. He called Monday’s attack on the mall “a new war crime.”

As they have in other attacks, Russian officials claimed the shopping center was not the target.

In a virtual address to the U.N. Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has become a terrorist state and called for it to be expelled from the United Nations. He also urged the U.N. to establish an international tribunal to investigate Russia’s action in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy ended his address by asking all in the chamber to stand in silent tribute to the “tens of thousands” of Ukrainian children and adults killed in the war. All council members rose, including Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky.

How to counter Russia and back Ukraine will also be the focus of a summit this week of the NATO alliance, whose support has been critical to Kyiv’s ability to fend off Moscow’s larger and better equipped forces. Ukrainian leaders, however, say they need more and better weapons if they are to hold off and even drive back Russia, which is pressing an all-out assault in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

As Macron spoke, rescuers combed through the charred rubble of the shopping mall, which officials said was struck when more than 1,000 afternoon shoppers and workers were inside.

Kateryna Romashyna, a local resident, told The Associated Press that she had just arrived at the mall when an explosion knocked her down. When another blast came about 10 minutes later, she realized she needed to get away.

“I ran away from the epicenter with all of my strength,” she said. Fighting back tears, she added: “You have to be a real monster” to strike a shopping mall.

Many of those inside quickly fled the building when an air raid siren sounded and took shelter across the street, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky said. Several of the bodies of those who didn’t make it out in time are burned beyond recognition, he said.

In addition to the 18 killed, authorities said 59 were wounded, while 21 people were still missing.

The attack recalled strikes earlier in the war that hit a theater, a train station, and a hospital. Zelenskyy called it “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.”

Rocket attacks continued elsewhere in Ukraine, with authorities in the city of Dnipro reporting that workers at a diesel car repair shop were trapped in rubble after a strike from a cruise missile fired from the Black Sea, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The Ukrainian military managed to intercept and destroy other missiles fired at the city, the agencies said.

As condemnation came in from many quarters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov struck a defiant note, saying Russia would press its offensive until it fulfills its goals. He said the hostilities could stop “before the end of the day” if Ukraine were to surrender and meet Russia’s demands, including recognizing its control over territory it has taken by force.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov claimed that warplanes fired precision-guided missiles at a depot that contained Western weapons and ammunition, which detonated and set the mall on fire. Ukrainian authorities said that in addition to the direct hit on the mall, a factory was struck, but denied it housed weapons.

Konashenkov also falsely alleged that the mall was not in use.

One survivor, Oleksandr, a mall employee, told the AP from a hospital bed that the shopping center was packed with customers. He recalled stepping outside with a colleague for a cigarette when the air raid siren went off.

“There was a black tunnel, smoke, fire,” he said. “I started to crawl. I saw the sun up there, and my brain was telling me I needed to save myself.”

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the missile attack was one of Russia’s “crimes against humanity.” She emphasized the need for all Ukrainians to remain alert and expect a similar strike “every minute.”

On Tuesday, Russian forces struck the Black Sea city of Ochakiv, damaging apartment buildings and killing two, including a 6-year-old child. Six more people, four of them children, were wounded. One of them, a 3-month-old baby, is in a coma, according to officials.

The unusually intense spate of fire came as the G-7 leaders pledged continued support for Ukraine and prepared new sanctions against Russia, including a price cap on oil and higher tariffs on goods.

Zelenskyy has called for more air defense systems from his Western allies to help his forces fight back. NATO’s support for Ukraine will be a major focus of a summit starting this week in Madrid, and an early signal of unity came Tuesday when Turkey agreed to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the two Nordic countries to abandon their long-held nonaligned status and apply to join NATO. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had blocked the move, insisting they change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned the West that “the more weapons are pumped into Ukraine, the longer the conflict will continue and the longer the agony of the Nazi regime backed by Western capitals will last.”

Russia has falsely called the war a campaign to “de-Nazify” Ukraine — a country with a democratically elected Jewish president who wants closer ties with the West.

In a sinister message to NATO leaders, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos published satellite images and the precise coordinates of the conference hall where their summit will be held.

It also posted images and the coordinates of the White House, the Pentagon and the government headquarters in London, Paris and Berlin — referring to them as “decision-making centers supporting the Ukrainian nationalists” in a message on the Telegram app. That wording echoes warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could target such centers in response to what he has called Western aggression.

In other developments:

— One of the two Britons sentenced to death by separatist forces in eastern Ukraine has filed a formal appeal, the Russian news agency Tass reported early Wednesday. The report said the appeal filed on behalf of Shaun Pinner will be considered within two months.

Pinner, Aiden Aslin and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun were sentenced to death on June 9 and were given one month to appeal. The court claimed they were fighting for Ukraine as mercenaries so were not entitled to protections provided to prisoners of war. There was no mention of appeals for the other two men.

— The two fighting countries continued a sporadic series of prisoner exchanges. Ukraine exchanged 15 Russian prisoners-of-war for 16 Ukrainian soldiers and one civilian, the Ukrainian Pravda news outlet reported Tuesday.

— Ukrainian Pravda also reported that in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the mayor was detained Tuesday and occupying authorities seized his computer hard drive and documents after he had refused to cooperate with Russian-appointed local officials. Russia’s Tass news agency confirmed the detention.

— Bulgaria said Tuesday it was expelling 70 Russian diplomats designated “a threat to national security,” ordering them to leave within five days. A Bulgarian foreign ministry statement said this would reduce Russia’s Sofia embassy staff “to up to 23 diplomatic and 25 administrative and technical staff.”

___

Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Oleksandr Stashevskyi in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

——

This version corrects to say that Zelenskyy called Russia a terrorist state and did not call Putin a terrorist.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces battled Wednesday to surround the Ukrainian military’s last stronghold in a long-contested eastern province, as shock reverberated from a Russian airstrike on a shopping mall that killed at least 18 in the center of the country two days earlier.

Moscow’s battle to wrest the entire Donbas region from Ukraine saw Russian forces pushing toward two villages south of Lysychansk while Ukrainian troops fought to prevent their encirclement.

Britain’s defense ministry said Russian forces were making “incremental advances” in their offensive to capture Lysychansk, the last city in the Luhansk province under Ukrainian control following the retreat of Ukraine’s forces from the neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk.

Russian troops and their separatist allies control 95% of Luhansk and about half of Donetsk, the two provinces that make up the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas.

The latest assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the Ukrainians were likely in a fighting withdrawal to seek more defensible positions while draining the Russian forces of manpower and resources.

Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said Russia “may think time is on its side” due to the escalating costs borne by the West and fatigue as the war grows longer. The most likely scenario predicted by American intelligence, Haines said, is a “grinding struggle” in which Russia consolidates its hold over southern Ukraine by the fall.

The U.S. correctly predicted Russia would invade Ukraine in February, but was wrong in assessing that it would quickly seize Kyiv. Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday, Haines said Russian President Vladimir Putin “has effectively the same political goals that he had previously, which is to say that he wants to take most of Ukraine” and push it away from NATO.

“We perceive a disconnect between Putin’s near-term military objectives in this area and his military’s capacity, a kind of mismatch between his ambitions and what the military is able to accomplish,” Haines said.

Putin also said his goals in Ukraine have not changed since the start of the war. He said they were “the liberation of the Donbas, the protection of these people and the creation of conditions that would guarantee the security of Russia itself.” He made no mention of his original stated goals to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

He denied Russia adjusted its strategy after failing to take Kyiv. “As you can see, the troops are moving and reaching the marks that were set for them for a certain stage of this combat work. Everything is going according to plan,” Putin said at a news conference in Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, crews continued to search through the rubble of the shopping mall in Kremenchuk where Ukrainian authorities say 20 people remain missing.

Ukrainian State Emergency Services press officer Svitlana Rybalko told The Associated Press that along with the 18 people killed, investigators found fragments of eight more bodies. It was not immediately clear whether that meant there were more victims. A number of survivors suffered severed limbs.

“The police cannot say for sure how many (victims) there are. So we are finding not the bodies but the fragments of bodies,” Rybalko said. “Now we are clearing at the very epicenter of the blast. Here, we practically cannot find bodies as such.”

Several families stood by what was left of the Amstor shopping center Wednesday morning in hope of finding missing loved ones.

“This is pure genocide,” local resident Tatiana Chernyshova said while going to lay flowers at the site. “Such things cannot happen in the 21st century.”

“We need to engage everyone to help stop the war, help us fight these scum — these Russian aggressors,” Chernyshova said.

Psychologists working at the site with families said they were trying to help people come to terms with their loss.

“We are trying to help them release their emotions now, as later it becomes harder and much more painful,” said one psychologist, who did not give his name as he was not authorized to speak to the press.

After the attack on the mall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of becoming a “terrorist” state. On Wednesday, he reproached NATO for not embracing or equipping his embattled country more fully.

“The open-door policy of NATO shouldn’t resemble old turnstiles on Kyiv’s subway, which stay open but close when you approach them until you pay,” Zelenskyy told NATO leaders meeting in Madrid, speaking by video link. “Hasn’t Ukraine paid enough? Hasn’t our contribution to defending Europe and the entire civilization been sufficient?”

He asked for more modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the NATO leaders they either had to provide Ukraine with the help it needed to defeat Russia or “face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday dismissed what she claimed was the Ukrainian government’s “blatant provocation” in trying to blame the mall missile strike on Russia’s military.

Britain’s defense ministry said there was a “realistic possibility” that the mall strike “was intended to hit a nearby infrastructure target.”

“Russian planners highly likely remain willing to accept a high level of collateral damage when they perceive military necessity in striking a target,” the ministry said. “It is almost certain that Russia will continue to conduct strikes in an effort to interdict the resupplying of Ukrainian front-line forces.”

Russia’s military also is experiencing a shortage of more modern precision strike weapons, which is compounding civilian casualties, the British ministry said.

In southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike on a multi-story apartment building Wednesday in the city of Mykolaiv killed at least four people and injured five, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. Mykolaiv is a major port and seizing it — as well as Odesa farther west — would be key to Russia’s objective of cutting off Ukraine from its Black Sea coast.

Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement that the missile strike on Mykolaiv targeted a base for training “foreign mercenaries,” as well as ammunition depots.

In other developments Wednesday:

— A senior Russian lawmaker warned that Lithuania’s refusal to allow some goods targeted by European Union sanctions through to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad could trigger a military confrontation.

The statement by Vladimir Dzhabarov, a deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, followed the Kremlin’s warning that it will retaliate against restrictions of transit to Kaliningrad. The region borders EU and NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

— Russia’s foreign ministry summoned Norway’s charge d’affaires to protest Oslo’s blocking of a shipment of supplies to a Russian coal-mining town in the Svalbard islands.

Although the Svalbards are Norwegian territory, a 1920 treaty allows all signatory countries the right to exploit its natural resources. Russia operates a coal mine in Barentsburg, a settlement of about 450 people, which relies on shipments from the mainland of food, machinery and other supplies. Norway imposed sanctions on shipments from Russia in April.

— Ukrainian military intelligence says that in the largest prisoner swap since the start of the war 144 Ukrainian troops were released from Russian captivity. Of those released, 95 were involved in defending the Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s devastated southern city of Mariupol before Russian forces captured it weeks ago. Denis Pushilin, the separatist leader in Donetsk, said an equal number of soldiers was released by both sides.

— European Union leaders approved a 600-million euro ($631 million) package to address food security issues brought on by the Ukrainian war in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

— British businessman Richard Branson met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv and also visited the Hostomel airport outside the city. Zelenskyy said Branson, whose Virgin Group includes an airline, may be interested in rebuilding the airport, which was badly damaged early in the war.

— Britain is imposing sanctions on Russia’s second-richest man and on a cousin of Putin’s. Vladimir Potanin, owner of the Interross conglomerate, has continued to amass wealth while backing Putin, acquiring Rosbank and shares in Tinkoff Bankonith in the period following the invasion of Ukraine, a U.K. government statement said Wednesday.

The statement said Putin’s cousin, Anna Tsivileva, and her husband, Sergey Tsivilev, have “significantly benefited” from their relationship with Putin. Tsivileva is president of the JSC Kolmar Group coal mining company, and Tsivilev is governor of the coal-rich Kemerovo region.

___

Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Frank Griffiths and Sylvia Hui in London, Maria Grazia Murru in Kyiv, Samuel Petrequin in Brussels and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

MADRID (AP) — NATO declared Russia the “most significant and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security on Wednesday and vowed to strengthen support for Ukraine, even as that country’s leader chided the alliance for not doing more to help it defeat Moscow.

The military organization’s condemnation was not wholly surprising: Its chief earlier said Russia’s war in Ukraine had created Europe’s biggest security crisis since World War II. But it was a sobering about-face for an alliance that a decade ago called Moscow a strategic partner.

NATO also issued a warning about China, accusing it of bullying its neighbors and forming a “strategic partnership” with Moscow that poses a challenge to the West.

Set up some 70 years ago to counter the Soviet Union, NATO held its summit in Madrid in a world transformed by Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The war drove the alliance to pour troops and weapons into eastern Europe on a scale unseen in decades and pushed Sweden and Finland to seek the safety of NATO membership.

The two formerly nonaligned nations were formally invited to join on Wednesday, as Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the war had brought “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.”

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented that NATO’s open-door policy to new members did not appear to apply to his country.

“The open-door policy of NATO shouldn’t resemble the old turnstiles on Kyiv’s subway, which stay open but close when you approach them until you pay,” Zelenskyy said by video link. “Hasn’t Ukraine paid enough?”

He also asked for more modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the leaders they either had to provide Kyiv with the help it needed or “face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.”

“The question is, who’s next? Moldova? Or the Baltics? Or Poland? The answer is: all of them,” he said.

Zelenskyy has acknowledged that NATO membership is a distant prospect. Under NATO treaties, an attack on any of the 30 members would trigger a military response by the entire alliance, so it is trying to strike a delicate balance, letting its nations arm Ukraine without sparking a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

At the same time NATO has moved quickly to ensure that its members are protected, dramatically scaling up military force along its eastern flank, where countries from Romania to the Baltic states worry about Russia’s future plans.

It plans to increase almost eightfold the size of the alliance’s rapid reaction force, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, by next year. The troops will be based in their home nations but dedicated to specific countries in the east, where the alliance plans to build up stocks of equipment and ammunition.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides the bulk of NATO’s military power, vowed the summit would send “an unmistakable message … that NATO is strong and united.”

“We’re stepping up. We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been,” said Biden. He announced a hefty boost in America’s military presence in Europe, including a permanent U.S. base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons to the U.K.

Still, strains among NATO allies have also emerged as the cost of energy and other essential goods has skyrocketed, partly because of the the war and tough Western sanctions on Russia. There also are tensions over how the war will end and what, if any, concessions Ukraine should make.

Money remains a sensitive issue — just nine of NATO’s 30 members currently meet the organization’s target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country does hit the target, urged NATO allies “to dig deep to restore deterrence and ensure defense in the decade ahead.”

At the summit, the leaders published NATO’s new Strategic Concept, its once-a-decade set of priorities and goals.

The last such document, in 2010, called Russia a “strategic partner.” At the time, the idea of Russia waging a land war on NATO’s borders would have sounded far-fetched.

Now, NATO accused Russia of using “coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation” to extend its reach.

The document also set out NATO’s approach on issues from cybersecurity to climate change — and the growing economic and military reach of China. For the first time, the leaders of Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand attended the summit as guests, a reflection of the growing importance of Asia and the Pacific region and NATO’s desire to counterbalance China.

“China is not our adversary, but we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” Stoltenberg said.

“We see a deepening strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing, and China’s growing assertiveness and its coercive policies have consequences for the security of our allies and our partners,” he added.

The alliance said, however, that it remained “open to constructive engagement” with Beijing.

NATO also stressed the need to address political instability in Africa’s Sahel region and the Middle East — aggravated by “climate change, fragile institutions, health emergencies and food insecurity” — that is driving large numbers of migrants toward Europe. Host Spain and other European countries pushed for this new focus.

The summit, which ends Thursday, opened with one problem solved, after Turkey agreed Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

NATO operates by consensus, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had threatened to block the Nordic pair, insisting they change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.

After talks with leaders of the three countries, Stoltenberg said the impasse had been cleared.

The two countries’ accession has to be ratified by all nations, but Stoltenberg said he was “absolutely confident” Finland and Sweden would become members quickly.

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said his country was eager to get out of the “gray zone” of having applied for membership but not yet fully covered by NATO’s collective defense guarantee.

“Our aim is that that period should be as short as possible,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Madrid contributed.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared for his war on Ukraine for at least a year before inciting it, and predicted Putin is likely to be able to maintain a drawn-out offensive for a “long time.”

Scholz made the comments in a Thursday interview with CBS News “Face the Nation” moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan at the NATO summit in Madrid. The war on Ukraine has now dragged on for more than four months, and Russia is using its firepower to make incremental gains. US intelligence estimates that Russia currently holds about 20% of the country, mostly in eastern Ukraine. 

“When will Russia no longer have the ability to continue this fight? When will Putin run out of weapons, run out of funds? Or can this continue for years,” Brennan asked Scholz. 

No one really knows, Scholz replied, but Putin’s lengthy planning suggests he’s prepared for a sustained war effort.

“He has — he is perhaps the leader of a very great country with a lot of people living there, with a lot of means, and he is really doing this brutal war with — and he prepared for it [for] very long,” Scholz said. “I think the decision to- to do this war was taken one year before it started or possibly earlier because he prepared for it. And so, he will be able to continue with the war really a long time.”

Scholz said that even though Putin “will not really admit it,” he still recognizes that Russia is feeling the impact of Western sanctions. 

“You get some idea that it really is hurting him, and that [Putin] understands the deep impacts of our sanctions on his economy…” Scholz said. “This is now happening to a country that is not that advanced, that is really needing all the technologies from the rest of the world for having a similar standard of living, and for having the chance to be part of growth in the world economy.” 

But when asked about the approximately $2 billion a month Germany has spent on Russian gas, coal and other energy supplies — about the same amount Germany is sending in aid to Ukraine — Scholz denied he was giving Putin an out from the sanctions. 

“He cannot buy anything from the money he’s getting from us because he will — he has all these sanctions on imports for modern technologies and things he is looking for,” he said. “So this is what is making [Putin] very angry.” 

But when Brennan noted that Putin could use that money elsewhere — just not in the West — and asked if Germany was still spending approximately $2 billion a month on Russian energy supplies, Scholz noted that “it is always decreasing.” 

“And I, once again, say that we decided that we do the — that we draft the sanctions in the way that they hurt Putin, and this is what we do,” he added. “And, once again, we are now doing real investments into technology, in pipelines, in ports. And I know that there are people that sometimes think that when you are having taken a decision one afternoon, the next morning you have a port and the 40 kilometers pipeline … in the real life, this is not happening.”  

More of this exclusive interview will air Sunday on “Face the Nation.” 

More

First published on June 30, 2022 / 2:18 PM

© 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Be the first to know

Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.

Andriy Melnyk,Ukraine’s outspoken ambassador to Germany, drew the ire of Poland, Israel, and Jewish groups on Friday when he defended Ukranian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in an interview.

Melnyk has made himself one of the most well-known ambassadors in Berlin, appearing regularly on talk shows and speaking his mind about the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He was particularly strident in his criticism of the time it took for the German government to agree to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.

In an interview with German journalist Tilo Jung on Thursday, Melynk defended the World War II-era figure, saying that “Bandera was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles,” arguing that there was no evidence for such accusations.

Stepan Bandera is an extremely controversial figure in Ukraine, with some hailing him as a hero in his fight for Ukrainian statehood against the former Soviet Union, but with most acknowledging that he was a fascist who collaborated with Nazi Germany and participated in massacres of Jews and Polish citizens.

‘A distortion of historical facts’

“The statement made by the Ukrainian ambassador is a distortion of the historical facts, belittles the Holocaust and is an insult to those who were murdered by Bandera and his people,” the Israeli embassy said.

Polish deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz wrote on a local online platform that “such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry quickly moved to distance itself from Melnyk’s comments. 

“The opinion that the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andriy Melnyk expressed in an interview with a German journalist is of his own and does not reflect the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Thursday night.

It also expressed its gratitude to Poland “for its unprecedented support in the fight against Russian aggression,” and emphasized the need for “unity in the face of shared challenges.”

es/msh (dpa, Reuters)