War in Ukraine is Europe's most dangerous moment since World War Two and Russia must be stopped, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned today.
He said western allies must prepare to keep sending arms to Ukraine ’s military for a long time and vowed they will go to war if Russia encroaches into NATO territory.
Stoltenberg, speaking in Norway said: "It's in our interest that this type of aggressive policy does not succeed.
"What happens in Ukraine is terrible but it would be much worse if there was a war between Russia and NATO.”
He warned: "This is the most dangerous situation in Europe since World War Two.
"If President Putin even thinks of doing something similar to a NATO country as he has done to Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine, then all of NATO will be involved immediately.
“This is not just an attack on Ukraine, an independent democratic nation with more than 40 million people, it's also an attack on our values and the world order we want.”
The war has led Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership, with the request so far ratified by 23 of the 30 member states, including the US.
Stoltenberg added: "This is not just an attack on Ukraine, an independent democratic nation with more than 40 million people, it's also an attack on our values and the world order we want.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the pressure his troops are under in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine as "hell".
He spoke of fierce fighting around the town of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Pisky.
Frontline Avdivka is the site of astonishing resistance by Ukrainian troops, as witnessed by the Daily Mirror in the months preceding the invasion.
Kyiv’s troops there, many of them paratroopers, have held the line in the strategic village, fighting in horrific conditions for five months.
Even before the invasion, they were coming under daily fire and mortar bombing daily.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that Russian forces had mounted at least two assaults on Pisky but that its troops repelled them.
Ukraine has spent the last eight years fortifying defensive positions in Pisky, viewing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces.
Kyiv’s troops have been using western-supplied missile systems to attack Russian forces there in recent weeks.
Footage on social media showed bodies, some blown apart, lying beside a road in central Donetsk. Blood stained the pavement close to a bus stop.
Eight people were killed and four wounded by the Russian artillery shelling in the town of Toretsk in Donetsk.
British sources claimed estimates of Russian deaths in five months of fighting were less than half those from Ukraine officials.
They said up to 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war in Ukraine, whilst Kyiv’s official figures suggest Moscow has lost 41,170.
UK intelligence assessments say over 50,000 Russian troops are thought to have been wounded since the February invasion.
But one official said: “Because the battle has slowed down, the statistics have slowed down as well.”
Experts still fear Putin is hellbent on taking over the whole of Ukraine - despite his troops “making slow, incremental gains”.
An official said: “We think that Russia has not given up on its maximalist objectives for Ukraine.
“Militarily we question how they can achieve those objectives in the near term.
“But then what we need to understand better is that Russia is prepared to operate over a much longer time frame than we think in, typically.”
