Finland Seeks NATO Membership ‘Without Delay’

Asked on Wednesday if Finland would provoke Russia by joining NATO, Niinisto said: “My response would be that (Putin)caused this. Look at the mirror.”

NATO describes itself as a fundamentally defensive alliance, built around the principle that an attack on one member is an attack on all, effectively granting U.S. allies the protection of American superpower might, including its nuclear arsenal.

Asked on Wednesday if Finland would provoke Russia by joining NATO, Niinisto said: “My response would be that (Putin)caused this. Look at the mirror.”

NATO describes itself as a fundamentally defensive alliance, built around the principle that an attack on one member is an attack on all, effectively granting U.S. allies the protection of American superpower might, including its nuclear arsenal.

Reuters journalists have confirmed in recent days that Ukraine is now in control of territory on the banks of the Siverskiy Donets River, around 40 km (25 miles) from Kharkiv.

To the north, the Ukrainians have been pushing towards the Russian border. In the latest advance, they announced on Wednesday they had captured the village of Pytomnyk, halfway to the Russian border along the main highway north of Kharkiv.

“The withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kharkiv Oblast (region) is a tacit recognition of Russia’s inability to capture key Ukrainian cities where they expected limited resistance from the population,” Britain’s ministry of defence said in an update on Thursday.

Ukraine’s general staff said in an update overnight: “The enemy is regrouping in order to prevent our forces from advancing further” around Kharkiv, with combat under way where Russians had crossed the Siverskiy Donets.

Ukraine’s advances near Kharkiv could put some of Russia’s main supply lines to eastern Ukraine, located on the far bank of the Siverskiy Donets, within range of Ukrainian artillery, and even allow it to bombard staging areas inside Russia.

Both sides reported strikes overnight across the Russia-Ukraine border, which Reuters was not able to confirm.

Ukrainian officials reported shelling across the frontier from the Russian border town of Tyotkino, and air strikes that killed and wounded civilians in the northern Ukrainian city of Novhorod-Siversky.

Russia said one person was killed and seven wounded in Solokhi, a village near the border in its Belgorod region. Authorities have declared an alert in Belgorod and Kursk regions near the frontier.

Elsewhere, the Ukraine general staff said Russia had had some success advancing towards Kudryashivka and Sievierodonetsk, part of Moscow’s main assault in the eastern Donbas region.

Air strikes were continuing on Azovstal, a giant steelworks in the ruined southeastern port city of Mariupol where Ukrainian defenders have been making a last stand.

In the hamlet of Vilkhivka on Kharkiv’s eastern outskirts, the Ukrainian advance had made it possible for residents to return to comb through the wreckage of homes destroyed in heavy fighting weeks ago.

A grizzled pensioner recounted how Russian troops had used him and other villagers as human shields before retreating after fierce fighting.

“Can they really be called real soldiers after that?” he spat. “They are motherfuckers, not military men!”

Reuters