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Kyiv Welcomes Western Allies, Adheres to NATO Membership

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
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Kyiv Welcomes Western Allies, Adheres to NATO Membership

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands prior to their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Three Western officials visited on Thursday the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelensky lobbied for more air defense systems ahead of winter battles.

Zelensky received NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, whose visit to Kyiv coincided with the presence of the defense ministers of Britain and France.

The visits also come as Kyiv prepares to host on Friday the first Defense Industries Forum, where Ukrainian officials were set to meet representatives from over 160 defense firms and 26 countries.

During their talks, Stoltenberg and Zelensky focused on Ukraine’s membership in NATO. “(It is) a matter of time before Ukraine becomes a de jure member of the alliance,” Zelensky said at a joint press conference with the NATO chief.

In return, Stoltenberg said that Ukraine is “closer to NATO than ever before,” but remained cautious about setting any timetable to Kyiv’s joining the alliance, given the differing positions of NATO member states.

Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian government presented a plan to hike defense spending by 68 percent in 2024 compared to last year, a finance ministry document published Thursday showed.

The defense spending is set to jump to almost 10.8 trillion rubles (106 billion euros).

The Kremlin said the increase of the defense spending was due to “the requirements of the current phase.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made comments about the increase on Thursday. He said: "It is obvious that such an increase is absolutely necessary because we live in a state of hybrid war, we continue the special military operation. I mean the hybrid war that has been waged against us. And this requires high costs.”

In a related development, Belarus on Thursday said a Polish helicopter had violated its airspace twice.

Tense relations between the neighbors have been further strained by Belarusian ally Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

A similar incident occurred last September 1, when Belarus summoned a Polish diplomat to protest what it said was a Polish military helicopter's violation of its border.

The Belarusian State Border Commission said the Polish Mi-24 military helicopter crossed the border “at an extremely low altitude, flew to a depth of up to 1,200 meters into the territory of Belarus, and then turned back.”

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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.