Joe Biden says US will defend ‘every inch of NATO’ – as Moscow welcomes China’s help in ‘resolving’ Ukraine war
Joe Biden has said the US will defend “literally every inch of NATO” in the face of Russian aggression – as Moscow welcomed China having a more active role in “resolving” the Ukraine war.
The US president has met leaders from the Bucharest Nine – a collection of nations in the most eastern parts of the NATO alliance that came together in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The countries have expressed concerns that Mr Putin could launch military action against them next if he is successful in Ukraine.
Biden warns freedom is at stake in NATO meeting – follow live updates
“You’re the frontlines of our collective defence,” Mr Biden said of the group.
“And you know, better than anyone, what’s at stake in this conflict. Not just for Ukraine, but for the freedom of democracies throughout Europe and around the world.”
He pledged that NATO’s mutual-defence pact is “sacred” and that “we will defend literally every inch of NATO”.
Vladimir Putin greets China’s foreign policy chief Wang Yi in Moscow. Pic: AP
China’s top diplomat meets Putin in Russia
Meanwhile, Russia has welcomed Beijing taking a more active role in efforts to “resolve” the war after China’s top diplomat Wang Yi met Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Following the meeting, Mr Putin said he was looking forward to a visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
No other countries could influence the relationship between China and Russia, he added.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Mr Wang’s trip had shown Moscow and Beijing agreed on many issues.
Ms Zakharova praised China’s “balanced approach” towards the war.
“We welcome China’s readiness to play a positive role in resolving the Ukrainian crisis,” Ms Zakharova said.
Mr Wang was quoted in Russian state media as saying China will “firmly adhere to an objective and impartial position and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis”.
China has refused to criticise the invasion of Ukraine while condemning sanctions imposed on Russia.
In return, Russia has supported China amid tensions with the US over Taiwan.
Russia is due to begin military exercises with China in South Africa on Friday and has sent a frigate equipped with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles.
A Russian officer said Moscow would fire artillery, but not the missiles, whose speed makes them difficult to shoot down.
Putin ‘proud’ of those fighting in Ukraine
The top Chinese diplomat’s visit to Russia came as Mr Putin spoke at a huge rally in Moscow.
He said Russia is “proud of those who are fighting in Ukraine to defend the fatherland”, adding that the “whole country” supports them.
Chants of “Russia, Russia, Russia” were heard around him as he spoke.
Some 200,000 people had gathered in Moscow to hear Mr Putin’s address.
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‘There is a fight on our historic borders’
Biden criticises Russia’s move to pause nuclear treaty cooperation
Meanwhile, Mr Biden said Mr Putin had made a “big mistake” in deciding to suspend participation in the last nuclear treaty between the US and Russia.
He made the comment to reporters as he arrived at the presidential palace in Warsaw for a summit of the Bucharest Nine countries.
Moscow has insisted its decision to pull out of the New START treaty does not raise the risk of nuclear war.
The move is expected to have an immediate impact on US visibility into Russian nuclear activities as it allowed each side to conduct up to 18 inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites each year.
Biden wants to project strength, resolve and unity
Joe Biden is putting diplomatic weight behind all the fine words and imagery of this week.
The White House says he wants to project strength, resolve and unity. After his surprise trip to Kyiv and passionate rallying cry for freedom in this speech in Warsaw, he is meeting allies.
They want reassurance that the US understands their anxieties and stands with them in the face of renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The meeting of the Bucharest Nine countries on NATO’s eastern flank followed Vladimir Putin’s ominous speech in Moscow.
He delivered another perverse view of history, saying NATO started the war, then announced Russia’s suspension from the START nuclear arms treaty in a major blow for nuclear arms reduction efforts.
The move is being seen in western capitals as more nuclear bullying by the Russian president as the war enters another year.
Joe Biden condemned the move as a mistake before meeting his central European allies.
The treaty also imposes a cap on the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can deploy.
Russia has said it is not withdrawing from the pact altogether and would respect the caps on nuclear weapons set under the treaty.
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“I do not believe that the decision to suspend the New START Treaty brings us closer to nuclear war,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Despite the foreign minister’s comments, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said the world was “on the verge of a global conflict”.
“If the US wants Russia’s defeat, we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapons, including nuclear,” he wrote.
Speaking of Russia decision to pause its cooperation in the New START treaty, Mr Biden said: “It’s a big mistake.”
The remark, and his promise that the US would protect eastern NATO territory, came a day after he gave a highly-anticipated speech in the gardens of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
Mr Biden warned that Russian aggression, if unchecked, wouldn’t stop at Ukraine’s borders. “Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased,” he said. “They must be opposed.”
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‘Putin left with his forces in disarray’
He also met Moldovan President Maia Sandu in Warsaw, who last week claimed Moscow was behind a plot to overthrow her country’s government using external saboteurs.
She spoke out after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova. Those claims were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the right-wing populist leader who argued last week that the European Union is partly to blame for prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine, skipped the Bucharest Nine meeting with Mr Biden.
President Katalin Novak attended instead.
‘We must break the cycle of Russian aggression’
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who attended the meeting, said: “We don’t know when the war will end, but when it does, we need to ensure that history does not repeat itself.”
Pointing to past Russian actions in Georgia and Ukraine, he said: “We cannot allow Russia to continue to chip away at European security. We must break the cycle of Russian aggression.”
Meanwhile, Kyiv has said there can be no talk of peace with Russian troops in Ukraine.
World
Ukrainian frontline commander warns: ‘The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem’
In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.
We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.
The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.
They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.
War latest: Russia ready to carry out ‘massive attack’
The captain known by his men as ‘Genius’
In the summer, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russian territory, in Kursk
Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.
Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.
He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.
His nom de guerre is ‘Genius’, a nickname given to him by his men.
Captain Sasha Shyrshyn and Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a minefield’
Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.
We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.
“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.
He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.
Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.
Fortunately, neither he, nor any of his men, were there at the time.
“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.
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‘The world is scared of Russia’
It takes me a moment or two to realise we are only a few steps away from the Bradley, dug in and well hidden beneath the trees.
The disguised American Bradley vehicle hidden in the forest
Sasha tells me the Bradley is the finest vehicle he has ever used.
A vehicle so good, he says, it’s keeping the Ukrainian army going in the face of Russia’s overwhelming numbers of soldiers.
He explains: “Almost all our work on the battlefield is cooperation infantry with the Bradley. So we use it for evacuations, for moving people from one place to another, as well as for fire-covering.
“This vehicle is very safe and has very good characteristics.”
The American Bradley fighting vehicle that Ukrainian soldiers have found vital in their efforts
Billions of dollars in military aid has been given to Ukraine by the United States, and this vehicle is one of the most valuable assets the US has provided.
Ukraine is running low on men to fight, and the weaponry it has is not enough, especially if it can’t fire long-range missiles into Russia itself – which it is currently not allowed to do.
If President-elect Donald Trump cuts the supply of military aid, the Ukrainians will lose – it’s that simple.
US President-elect Donald Trump has been clear he intends to change his nation’s policy on the war in Ukraine. Pic: Reuters
Sasha says: “We have a lack of weapons, we have a lack of artillery, we have a lack of infantry, and as the world doesn’t care about justice, and they don’t want to finish the war by our win, they are afraid of Russia.
“I’m sorry but they’re scared, they’re scared, and it’s not the right way.”
Like pretty much everyone in Ukraine, Sasha is waiting to see what the US election result will mean for his country.
He is sceptical about a deal with Russia.
“Our enemy only understands the language of power. And you cannot finish the war in 24 hours, or during the year without hard decisions, without a fight, so it’s impossible. It’s just talking without results,” he tells me.
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‘Losing will be not only our problem’
These men expect the fierce battles inside Kursk to intensify in the coming days.
Indeed, alongside the main supply route into Kursk, workers are already building new defensive positions – unfurling miles of razor wire and digging bunkers for the Ukrainian army if it finds itself in retreat.
Barbed wire rolled out in the Sumy region ahead of expected fighting
Tank traps in the Sumy region
Sasha and his men are realistic about support fatigue from the outside world but will keep fighting to the last if they have to.
“I understand this is only our problem, it’s only our issue, and we have to fight this battle, like we have to defend ourselves, it’s our responsibility,” Sasha said.
But he points out everyone should realise just how critical this moment in time is.
“If we look at it widely, we have to understand that us losing will be not only our problem, but it will be for all the world.”
Stuart Ramsay reports from northeastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Azad Safarov, and Nick Davenport.
A weather warning has been issued for parts of Spain, as the country counts the cost of recent flooding.
The orange warnings are in place for parts of southwestern Spain – the area around Seville down towards Gibraltar.
Up to 8cm (3ins) of rain could fall within 12 hours, but the weekend looks much more settled in the country.
The latest warnings come just two weeks after flash flooding in Valencia and other parts of the country killed more than 200 people.
Malaga saw 14.2cm (5.6ins) of rainfall on Wednesday – Spain’s highest of the day – most of which fell in six hours.
All train services were halted in Malaga. Some flights have now resumed after the initial disruption.
Pic: Jamie Marchant
Emergency services in the province have moved 3,000 people from homes at risk of flooding close to the Guadalhorce River in the west of the city.
Jamie Marchant, 29, from Caerphilly in South Wales travelled to Malaga last Wednesday.
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He told Sky News that “debris” had been left behind by the recent rainfall in the region.
“Everyone is pitching in to clean up and some shops are opening as usual,” he added.
Orange warnings for the Valencia region in eastern Spain expired earlier on Thursday.
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The adverse weather could lead to total insured losses of more than €4bn (£3.33bn), according to credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS.
Much of the claims are expected to be covered by the Spanish government’s insurance pool, the agency said, but insurance premiums are likely to increase.
A necklace believed to contain jewels from the infamous Marie Antoinette “Affair of the Diamond Necklace” has been sold for £3.7m.
Set with nearly 500 diamonds and weighing about 300 carats, it smashed price expectations at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva.
The Marchioness of Anglesey wore it at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and it was also worn 16 years earlier at King George VI’s crowning.
However, the link to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, may have been the most intriguing selling point for the mystery buyer.
Some of the jewels are believed to have been at the centre of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace – a scandal which is said to have paved the way for Antoinette’s eventual downfall.
The scandal erupted when a hard-up noblewoman, Jeanne de la Motte, pretended to be the queen and acquired a hugely expensive necklace in her name without paying.
An undated portrait of Marie Antoinette. (AP Photo)
Antoinette, who was accused of having a hand in the scam, was acquitted in a trial. But the affair discredited her further in the eyes of the French people – among whom she was already deeply unpopular.
Her reputation never recovered, her public appearances all but ceased, and the number of pamphlets containing malicious gossip about her increased.
It also added to her reputation for extravagance that helped fuel the French Revolution – with the queen beheaded in 1793.
Pic: Reuters
Jewels from the original necklace – which contained nearly 650 diamonds and weighed almost 2,800 carats – were
later sold on the black market, making them hard to trace.
However, a Bond Street jeweller testified at the time that he bought about 350 of them for just over £10,000, according to Sotheby’s.
Experts say the quality and age of the diamonds in the necklace sold on Wednesday point to a match.
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“It’s likely or possible that some of these diamonds may have come from the famous diamond necklace that led to the downfall of Marie Antoinette,” said Jessica Wyndham, Sotheby’s head of magnificent jewels.
The Georgian-era piece measures 67cm and hadn’t been seen in public for 50 years before it came up for sale.
Its final sale price of over 4.2 million Swiss francs was double its pre-auction valuation.
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