SULAIMANI (ESTA) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance was deploying parts of its combat-ready response force and would continue to send weapons to Ukraine, including air defenses.
Missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital on Friday as Russian troops pressed their advance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded with the international community to do more, saying sanctions announced so far were not enough.
Stoltenberg told a news conference following a virtual meeting of NATO leaders that Russia was trying to topple the Ukrainian government, according to Reuters.
“We see rhetoric, the messages, which is strongly indicating that the aim is to remove the democratically-elected government in Kyiv,” he said.
He added that some of the 30 allies announced the type of weapons that they would supply Ukraine, including air defenses.
“Allies are very committee to continue to provide support,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Stoltenberg said that NATO was deploying elements of its rapid response force, which is made up of land, air, maritime and special operations forces, on allied territory.
“We are now deploying the NATO response force for the first time in the context of collective defense,” he said.
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Putin, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States.
“[The] enemy has marked me down as the number one target,” the Ukrainian president said in a video message. “My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”
“I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia is carrying out “a special military operation” to stop the Ukrainian government from committing genocide against its own people – an accusation the West calls baseless. He also says Ukraine is an illegitimate state whose lands historically belong to Russia.
An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced on the city from Belarus.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday urged NATO leaders to take immediate action using the SWIFT international payments system to impact Putin and his regime, according to Reuters.
Johnson urged leaders to take immediate action with SWIFT “to inflict maximum pain on President Putin and his regime,” his office said on Friday.
Separately, the European Union has agreed to place Putin and Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov on its list of sanctioned individuals, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“Let me flag that the only leaders in the world that are sanctioned by the European Union are Assad from Syria, Lukashenko from Belarus and now Putin from Russia,” Borrell told a news conference after a meeting of EU foreign ministers to settle details of the bloc’s sanctions, Reuters reported.
