NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called on alliance members and other Western partners to provide more support to Ukraine as the cold weather looms.
Speaking on Thursday after a meeting with Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs at the Adazi military base, Rutte warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “use winter as a weapon”.
Rutte said Russia would try to destroy Ukraine’s energy supply system: “That is why we must all increase our support to Ukraine, including air defense to protect critical infrastructure.”
To strengthen their own defense capabilities, NATO members should increase their defense spending and boost weapons production, Rutte said. Rinkēvičs also called on NATO partners to spend more on defence, specifically calling for an amount of 2.5 to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The official NATO target for military spending is currently 2%.
Rutte and Rinkēvičs watched a maneuver by the multinational NATO brigade stationed in Latvia, which was training together at full strength for the first time. About 3,500 soldiers from 13 NATO countries took part in the Resolute Warrior exercise. Latvia shares a border with Russia and its close ally Belarus to the east.
Former Governor Admits Russian Troops Looted Border Area
The former governor of Russia’s border region of Kursk admitted on Thursday that soldiers sent by Moscow to defend the region looted homes.
“There is evidence of looting by both civilians and military personnel,” Roman Starovoit, who has since become Russia’s transport minister, said at a meeting with residents of the Glushkovo district, which borders Ukraine.
A video clip from a local news portal on Telegram showed that the confession – rare among Moscow’s leaders – was met with applause from the public. Residents of the region had repeatedly complained of burglaries in their abandoned homes.
In their surprise counter-offensive this summer, Ukrainian forces captured part of the Kursk region. Russian troops are now trying to push the Ukrainian army out of the country.
Russia’s state news agency TASS has accused Ukrainian soldiers of looting the villages they captured, citing the village of Glushkovo as an example. But this village has never been under Ukrainian control.
Two elderly women killed in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine
Two women were killed in attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Russian-occupied eastern Luhansk region, according to occupation authorities.
On a road near the city of Lysychansk, Ukrainian forces attacked a car carrying civilians with a drone, the local government wrote on Telegram. An elderly woman was killed and a man was injured.
In Lysychansk itself, two houses were destroyed by Ukrainian army shelling, the authority added, killing another elderly woman.
The claims could not immediately be independently verified. Ukraine has emphasized in the past that it is not targeting civilians.
Before the war, Lysychansk was a large city with about 100,000 inhabitants. It was captured by Russian troops in the summer of 2022 after heavy fighting.
At least 13 people were injured by shelling in the center of the city of Horlivka in the neighboring Donetsk region, according to the occupation administration.
Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia’s war of aggression for almost a thousand days and is trying to retake the occupied territories.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics (R) addresses soldiers together with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. They visited a maneuver of the multinational NATO brigade stationed in Latvia, which is currently being formed and trained together at full strength for the first time. Alexander Welscher/dpa
