6 September 2024
During his last official visit to Norway on 5 September, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine has achieved "a lot" in its Kursk offensive into Russia but it's hard to say how the situation will develop next. "Only the Ukrainians can make the difficult choices that are needed, such as where to deploy their forces and what type of warfare is appropriate in this situation," Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg earlier told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that NATO had not been informed about Ukraine’s plans beforehand and did not play a role in them.
Russian forces are advancing in the east of Ukraine while Ukrainian troops have made a bold incursion into Russia's Kursk region, having launched on 6 August the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War II. Ukraine’s armed forces commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on 30 August his troops had advanced up to 2 km in Russia’s Kursk region in the past 24 hours.
Stoltenberg has supported calls for Ukraine to be allowed to deploy long-range missiles that can reach military targets on Russian territory as part of its right to self-defence. "I am glad that many NATO countries have given that opportunity, and those that still have restrictions have softened the restrictions so that Ukraine can defend itself," Stoltenberg said. Ending the restrictions already has the support of Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also called on allies to assist with air defences and remove restrictions preventing Kyiv from using donated weapons for long-range strikes into Russia.
Russia has called Ukraine’s Kursk operation a “major provocation” and said it would retaliate. On 26 August, it launched over 200 missiles and drones at the country, targeting the energy sector in one of the biggest such attacks of the war. Kyiv officials repeated calls on their allies to start shooting down Russian missiles and drones over Ukraine’s western regions to help the country’s stretched air defences and to protect civilians.
Escalating attacks in recent weeks on Ukraine have cause civilian deaths and destruction to surge, a senior United Nations disarmament official, Adedeji Ebo, said on 30 August, as he briefed the Security Council. “Let me say it clearly: directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is prohibited,” said Adedeji Ebo, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, underscoring the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack in international law. “All attacks contrary to these obligations must stop immediately”. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), July 2024 was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since October 2022, with at least 219 civilians killed and 1,018 injured, he said.
During the Washington Summit in July, Stoltenberg said that he does not see any immediate military threat against NATO countries but said there was a constant danger of terrorism, cyber-attacks and sabotage. At the end of August, however, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan issued a warning about the "risks" of nuclear war with Russia, according to Russian state news agency Tass. "Unfortunately, a war in the heart of Europe between Russia and Ukraine is in its third year. It risks escalating into a war involving the use of nuclear weapons," Fidan said during a TRT Haber broadcast, Tass reported. He added that there is "nothing more humane than the demand to stop the war" and that negotiations need to take place to "prevent our region from being further devastated by war".
Meanwhile, Russian state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on 2 September that Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as western escalation in the war in Ukraine. The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state. Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the west. Ryabkov’s comments were the clearest statement yet that changes would indeed be made. “The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to make corrections,” state news agency Tass cited Ryabkov as saying.