Attack on NATO energy supplies would provoke ‘united and determined response’, alliance chief vows
The EU believes damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month was the work of sabotage and suspicion has fallen on Russia, but it is not known for sure who was responsible.
Michael Drummond
News reporter @MikeRDrummond
Wednesday 12 October 2022 00:43, UK
Pic: AP
Image:
Bubbles rising to the surface from the damaged undersea pipeline. Pic: AP
Why you can trust Sky News
A deliberate attack on NATO energy supplies will be met with a “united and determined response”, the alliance’s chief has vowed.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged to boost protection of critical infrastructure in response to the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
The EU believes three leaks in the pipelines last month were the work of sabotage and suspicion has fallen on Russia, but it is not known for sure who was responsible.
Mr Stoltenberg said NATO has doubled its presence in the Baltic and the North Sea to more than 30 ships supported by aircraft and undersea activities.
Putin ‘moves Iranian drones into Belarus’ – Ukraine war latest updates
In a speech on Tuesday, he also said the alliance is monitoring Russia’s nuclear forces closely as the country was “losing on the battlefield” in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Moscow has issued a fresh warning to the West over its involvement in the Ukraine war.
MORE ON NATO
Undated handout photo issued by Ministry of Defence of British troops taking taken part in Exercise Vigilant Knife alongside Swedish and Finnish Armed Forces. The short notice command-post exercise took place in Rovaniemi and Rovajarvi, northern Finland from 29 August to 2 September 2022 and built on the success of Exercise Vigilant Fox which took place in July. Issue date: Sunday September 4, 2022.
Exercise Vigilant Knife: British troops take part in cold weather training with Swedish and Finnish armed forces
A pilot in Germany salutes from the cockpit of a Eurofighter as it heads towards Estonia. Pic: AP
NATO countries need to spend more on defence as alliance faces Russia’s military build-up, says head of organisation
EMBARGOED TO 0001 SATURDAY JULY 30 Undated handout photo issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of a soldier from 2 Rifles lying in the prone position as part of around 150 British Army and Royal Air force personnel taking part in a joint “high-readiness exercise” in Finland alongside US and Finnish armed forces. Issue date: Saturday July 30, 2022.
British troops in ‘high-readiness exercise’ with Finnish and US forces
Related Topics:
NATO
Russia
Ukraine
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia will take adequate countermeasures in response to the West’s “growing involvement”.
In the comments reported by the state-owned RIA news agency, he said: “We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a news conference ahead of a NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium October 11, 2022. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Image:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is monitoring Russia’s nuclear forces closely
Russian bombs have rained down on Ukraine, killing at least 14 people on Monday.
Vladimir Putin said the strikes were in retaliation for its “terrorist action” against Russian territory – the attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge in occupied Crimea – but Ukraine has rejected this claim of “provocation”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to make the battlefield “more painful” for Russian troops in response to the rocket attacks and said air defence was the “number one priority”.
Read more:
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – an accident waiting to happen
Russian forces ‘will soon be down to last supplies of fuel’
Despite remarkable Ukrainian battlefield successes – both early on in the war with the defence of Kyiv and more recently with counterattacks in Kharkiv and Kherson regions – the war could continue for decades to come, one expert said.
General Lord Dannatt says that NATO has huge conventional weapon capability0:37
Play Video – NATO ‘could sink whole Black Sea Fleet’
September: NATO ‘could sink whole Black Sea Fleet’
Sky News security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke said the war is likely to be a “generational struggle” and could be a “forever conflict” until “something changes in European security or Russia”.
Mr Clarke said the current crisis in Ukraine was the “second war” and the first war was witnessed in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.
He added: “My feeling is next year there will be a ceasefire in which the Ukrainians will be better placed and that ceasefire will be unstable and it will break down and there will be a third war and then a ceasefire and a fourth war.
“We’re dealing here with an existential struggle because the Russian establishment thinks that Ukraine has no right to exist and they won’t change their mind in the short-term.
“This is likely to be a generational struggle. Let’s say it’s going to last 30,40 or 50 years.”
