"We consider the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance to be a purely destabilising factor in international affairs." The Swedish and Finnish leaders are to be welcomed as candidates for full membership in the alliance, after Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to lift his threat of a veto - the NATO ally accuses Stockholm and Helsinki of harbouring wanted Kurdish militants.
Weapons shipments - "The summit in Madrid confirms and consolidates this bloc's policy of aggressive containment of Russia," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, Russian news agencies reported. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO's expansion was "the opposite" of what Putin hoped for, and said that the leaders meeting at the summit would "state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security". "That's exactly what he didn't want but exactly what needs to be done to guarantee security for Europe," Biden said, of Putin's efforts to roll back Western influence and re-establish influence or control over territories of the former Russian empire. An army brigade will rotate in and out of Romania, two squadrons of F-35 fighters will deploy to Britain, US air defence systems will be sent to Germany and Italy and the fleet of US Navy destroyers in Spain will grow from four to six. At this week's summit, two formerly neutral European countries - Sweden and Russia's north-western neighbour Finland - will be accepted as candidates to join NATO and Washington has announced that it will shift the headquarters of its 5th Army Corps to Poland. Moscow's February 24 invasion of pro-Western Ukraine triggered massive economic sanctions and a wave of support for Zelensky's government, including deliveries of advanced weapons.
'What needs to be done' - The Russian defence ministry said it had inflicted severe casualties on Ukrainian troops defending the town of Lysychansk, in the eastern Donbas region, and said the Kharkiv attack had hit Ukrainian command centres and a training base for foreign "mercenaries". Russia said it targeted a Ukrainian depot storing Western arms. Western leaders have dubbed the Kremenchuk strike a war crime, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that UN investigators visit. A giant crane was working near the near the site of the impact and in the rubble-strewn parking area shopping trolleys piled with clothes and household goods lay abandoned. In Kremenchuk, the town where a Russian missile on Monday destroyed a shopping centre and - according to local officials - killed at least 18 civilians, clearing operations continued. As Western leaders met in Madrid, in Ukraine officials complained that Russian missiles had hit civilian housing and businesses in and around the cities of Dnipro, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv, leaving at least seven dead and 14 wounded. Biden boasted that the US announcement was exactly what Putin "didn't want" and Moscow reacted with predictable fury, denouncing Sweden and Finland's entry plan as "destabilising" and accusing an "aggressive" NATO of seeking to contain Russia. News of the US plan came as NATO leaders met to welcome Sweden and Finland as candidates to join the alliance, a double blow to Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his bid to redraw Europe's security map. The United States will reinforce Europe's defences with a wave of new military deployments, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, as more Russian missiles smashed into Ukrainian cities.
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