NATO-Ukraine Council meeting to be held at Ukraine’s request
A NATO-Ukraine Council meeting will be held Ukraine’s request on Wednesday.
“The meeting will be held at ambassadorial level," NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement on Tuesday. She said that Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is also expected to brief allied states via video conference on the “battlefield situation and priority capability needs.” The spokesperson added that the meeting “comes after recent waves of heavy Russian strikes against Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.”
Dakhlallah reiterated NATO’s commitment to “further bolstering Ukraine’s defences.” Ukraine has openly stated its desire to join the NATO alliance.
While not offering to admit Ukraine to the alliance, NATO has strengthened ties with Kyiv since the war with
at
Russia began in February 2022.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that his country successfully tested its first domestically produced ballistic missile.
“There was a positive test of the first Ukrainian ballistic missile. I congratulate our military-industrial complex on this,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference following the Ukraine 2024 Independence forum held in the capital Kyiv.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine successfully carried out the first combat use of the domestically-produced Palianytsia long-range missile drone.
“It was designed domestically to destroy the enemy's offensive potential,” Zelenskyy posted on X together with a video, which said the missile drone is powered by a turbojet engine and is launched from a ground-based platform.
No further information has yet been provided about Palianytsia’s specifications. NATO on Tuesday criticized the entry of a suspected Russian drone into Polish airspace, describing the act as “irresponsible, potentially dangerous.”
“Poland has said that an object, probably a drone, has entered its airspace on Monday, at the time of Russian attacks on Ukraine,” NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah told Anadolu.
“We strongly condemn these ongoing attacks against Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure,” she said, adding: “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian drone fragments and missiles have been found on Allied territory on several occasions.”
“While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” Dakhlallah said.
“In response to Russia’s war, NATO has significantly increased its presence on its eastern flank, including in Poland,” she noted.
On Monday, 15 Ukrainian regions came under massive Russian drone and missile attacks.
Several Russian missiles have landed in Poland since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Tuesday that he had arrived in Russia's Kursk region due to concerns that fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops nearby could trigger a "nuclear incident."
"My presence here is driven by the proximity of military activities to the city of Kursk and its nuclear power plant . ... There is now a real risk of a nuclear incident," Rafael Grossi said at a news conference in Kurchatov, the town where the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is located.
Grossi confirmed that he observed evidence of drone strikes at the Kursk NPP. "I was informed today of multiple drone attacks on the plant's grounds and facilities. While at the station, I personally saw the damage caused by these attacks," he said, emphasizing that the plant's close proximity to active combat zones raises serious safety concerns.