NATO calls out Putins desperation after drone strike hit train near Poland
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Monday that Russian drone strikes near the Ukraine-Poland border — one of which hit a train shortly after senior visiting officials had passed through the same station — would drive the military alliance to increase its support for Kyiv, calling Sunday’s attacks a sign of Moscow’s growing desperation.The strikes “close to NATO territory” show Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “desperation and also his desire to sow fear and terror,” Rutte said at NATO’s political headquarters in Brussels.“Russia is growing increasingly reckless as it continues its terrible war against Ukraine.”Rutte pledged to increase support for Ukraine and bolster the 32-nation alliance’s own defenses along its long eastern border with Russia.“He thinks that he can stop us from supporting Ukraine and that he can undermine our unity.
He is wrong,” the NATO chief said of Putin.Sunday’s strikes near the Polish border are the latest in a string of incidents that officials say point to a deliberate pattern of escalation by Putin, as Moscow tests NATO’s response while pressing its offensive in Ukraine.Rutte’s comments came as Poland pledged increased security along its border with Ukraine after a wave of Russian drone strikes near the frontier, including two that landed within kilometers of Polish territory.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Sunday that Moscow appears poised to intensify its campaign against Ukraine’s borders with European countries.Ukraine is under mounting pressure from Russia’s intensifying air campaign that uses ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce defenses.“These coming weeks and months will be a time of very intensified actions on the Russian side, and unfortunately we cannot rule out that this escalation will also affect our territory,” Tusk said Sunday after a governmental security briefing in Warsaw.
He issued a similar warning on Thursday.Defense Minister Władys...