Putin preparing to mobilize more than 200,000 new troops to Ukraine, NATO chief warns

Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to mobilize more than 200,000 new troops, as he continues his relentless attacks in eastern Ukraine, NATO’s top official warned Monday.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said there is “no sign” that the warmongering leader is “preparing for peace.”

“We see the opposite. We see that they are preparing for more war, that they are mobilizing more soldiers, more than 200,000, and potentially even more than that,” Stoltenberg said while speaking at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Seoul.

“[We see’ that they are actively acquiring new weapons, more ammunition, ramping up their own production, but also acquiring more weapons from other authoritarian states like Iran and North Korea.”

Stoltenberg grimly predicted that Ukraine’s allies need to be “prepared for the long haul.”

“We have seen no sign that President Putin has changed his overall goal of this invasion that is to control a neighbor, to control Ukraine,” he said.

Stoltenberg urged South Korea to increase military support to Ukraine, saying there is an “urgent need.”

“At the end of the day, it’s a decision for you to make, but I’ll say that several NATO allies who have had as a policy to never export weapons to countries in a conflict have changed that policy now,” he said, citing Germany, Sweden and Norway.

His comments come after President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to Ukraine’s Western allies to send new weapons faster to confront “very tough,” relentless attacks by Russian forces in the east.

“The situation is very tough. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in Donetsk region — there are constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defenses,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address Sunday.

“Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon,” he added. “We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine.”

The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said earlier Sunday that its troops repelled an attack near Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region, while Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries claimed they took control of the village.

A later military statement made no mention of Blahodatne.

Zelensky issued his latest appeal for stepped-up weapons shipments days after Germany and the US led a list of countries agreeing to supply dozens of advanced Leopard 2 and Abrams battle tanks.

Moscow responded to the tank pledges by unleashing deadly barrages of missiles and armed drones across Ukraine.

On Saturday, Zelensky said Ukraine needed the US-made ATACMS missile with a range of about 185 miles, which Washington has so far declined to ship.

A presidential adviser said “fast-track talks” were under way on supplying long-range missiles and a Ukrainian air force spokesman spoke of negotiations on providing aircraft.

Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine’s allies in the West “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply planes capable of providing cover for the armored fighting vehicles that the US and Germany pledged at the beginning of the month.

However, in remarks to online video channel Freedom, Zelensky’s senior aide said some of Ukraine’s partners maintain a “conservative” attitude to arms deliveries, “due to fear of changes in the international architecture.”

Podolyak stressed that Ukraine needs supplies of long-range missiles “to drastically curtail the key tool of the Russian army” by destroying the warehouses where it stores artillery used on the front line.

In his latest remarks, Zelensky said Ukraine’s command was committed to ensuring that “our pressure is greater than the occupiers’ capacity to attack” and that meant “maintaining the defense support from our partners.”

“The enemy takes no account of its personnel and despite the extent of the losses is maintaining the intensity of its attacks,” he said.

“Confronting this requires extraordinary resilience and a full awareness by our soldiers that in defending Donetsk region they are defending all of Ukraine.”

With Post wires