Zelenskiy, at NATO HQ, asks for weapons to face winter of 'terror'

[October 11, 2023]  By Marine Strauss, Andrew Gray and Idrees Ali

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday asked NATO allies for more weapons and air defences to tide his country through another wartime winter as it braces for a barrage of Russian attacks on power stations and other infrastructure.

Zelenskiy made his first visit to NATO headquarters since Russia's invasion last year, at a time when turbulence in the U.S. Congress threatens to disrupt aid for Kyiv and the world's attention is drawn to another crisis unfolding in Israel.

He made explicit comparisons between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, and said Western military aid was crucial to put Moscow on the backfoot in the war.

"The winter air defence is a significant part of the answer to the question of when this war will end and whether it will end justly for Ukraine," he said.

"We must win the winter battle against terror and we can win it," he added at a meeting of defence ministers from NATO and some 20 other countries that give military aid to Ukraine in a U.S.-led forum known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

Reiterating the West's pledge to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a new $200 million defence package for Ukraine, including air defence munitions and weapons to counter Russian drones.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Putin was "preparing once again to use winter as a weapon of war" by attacking energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

"We need to prevent that, with more advanced and increased capabilities for air defence, we can make a big difference," Stoltenberg said.

U.S REASSURANCE

Ukraine started a counteroffensive over the summer to try to retake territory in the south and east, but has so far failed to make major breakthroughs past Russia's network of fortifications and minefields.

Washington has provided $44 billion to supply Kyiv with dozens of tanks, thousands of rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition since Russia's invasion but support is falling among Americans of both main political parties.

Austin and Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, the new top U.S. military officer, want to reassure NATO allies and Ukraine that Washington will continue to provide support to Kyiv despite aid being held up by infighting in the U.S. Congress.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting ahead of a two day NATO Defense Ministers Council at the alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 11, 2023. Olivier Matthys/Pool via REUTERS

But they will also have to convince allies that Washington can support Ukraine while helping Israel deal with the attacks by Hamas militants.

Successive presidents have tried to reduce the United States' focus on the Middle East, but are drawn in by crises that can take away from military resources in other parts of the world.

Zelenskiy sought to portray the Russian invasion and the attacks by Hamas as two sides of the same coin.

"Terrorists like Putin or like Hamas seek to hold free and democratic nations as hostages and they want power," he said.

"(Russia) still has enough resources to incite conflicts and turn them into full-scale tragedies and this is happening in Sahel. And it can happen even more painfully in Israel and in the Middle East."

Russia has denied targeting civilians and has blamed the West for the war in Ukraine, saying it had no choice but to launch what it calls a "special military operation" there. It describes as baseless suggestions from Ukraine that Moscow is seeking to inflame the situation in the Middle East.

Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, says its attack was justified by the plight of Gaza under a 16-year-old blockade and the deadliest Israeli crackdown for years in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is to join NATO ministers on Thursday via videoconference to discuss the Hamas assault and its consequences.

(Reporting by Marine Strauss, Andrew Gray, Idrees Ali and Sabine Siebold; Writing by Andrew Gray and Matthias Williams; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Andrew Cawthorne and Angus MacSwan)

[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.