More civilians die in Donbas as Nato says Russia cannot be allowed to defeat Ukraine

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance must help prevent Moscow from winning its war against Kyiv, while ensuring the West does not become directly involved in the conflict, as more civilians were killed amid heavy fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russian shelling killed at least eight people and wounded four others near a bus stop in the government-controlled eastern city of Toretsk on Thursday, as Ukrainian officials angrily rejected an Amnesty International report that accused the country’s military of breaching humanitarian law by placing troops and weapons in residential areas.

“We support Ukraine in their right to self defence… All Nato countries agreed that we will support them as long as necessary,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

“We have a moral responsibility to support them… We are seeing acts of war, attacks on civilians and destruction not seen since World War Two. We cannot be indifferent to this.”

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At the same time, he said, Nato must “prevent the war from spreading… What happens in Ukraine is terrible but it would be much worse if there was a war between Russia and Nato.”

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With his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, Russian president Vladimir Putin was “challenging the world order we believe in, where all countries, large and small, can choose their own path,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

“It is also in our own interest that President Putin does not succeed in his ambitions in Ukraine. A world where the lesson for Putin is that he gets what he wants by using military force is also a more dangerous world for us. If Russia wins this war, he will have confirmation that violence works.”

The Kremlin claims that its “special military operation” is to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine from Russophobic ultra-nationalists and to prevent the pro-western democracy of 40 million people from being used by hostile Nato powers to attack Russia.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced by Russia’s invasion and occupation of swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces are trying to hold their lines in the Donbas area and mount a counterattack in Kherson region.

Russian troops took several cities only after destroying much of their housing and other infrastructure with heavy shelling, and they continue to pound Mykolaiv, Bakhmut, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and other Kyiv-held strongholds with daily artillery and rocket fire.

Amnesty International said in a report that government troops were endangering residents of eastern and southern Ukraine by “launching strikes from within residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings”.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba accused the group of “trying to create a false balance between perpetrator and victim. Between a country that destroys thousands of civilians. And a country desperately defending itself, saving its people, saving the continent from this invasion.”

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said “the only thing that poses a threat to Ukrainians is Russia’s army of executioners and rapists coming to Ukraine to commit genocide. Our defenders protect their nation and families. People’s lives are the priority for Ukraine, that is why we are evacuating residents of front-line cities.”

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022