War seeing most serious escalation since full-scale invasion of Ukraine - Stoltenberg

The Russian war in Ukraine is now at the stage of the most serious escalation since February 2022.

That’s according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke at a briefing in Brussels on October 13, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“President Putin has responded to his failures on the battlefield with attempted annexations, partial mobilization, reckless nuclear rhetoric and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure together. This represents the most serious escalation since the invasion,” Stoltenberg told journalists.

The NATO chief praised yesterday’s vote at the UN General Assembly, which condemned Russian annexation attempts targeting Ukrainian territories and called on Russia to recall the illegal decisions.

“This is a clear and strong message that Russia is isolated and the world stands with Ukraine in defense of the rules based international order,” said Stoltenberg.

The top NATO official recalled that the Alliance is not party to an ongoing conflict but “we will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Brussels is hosting on October 12-13 a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of defense ministers. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group (the Ramsteing format) met on Wednesday, October 12 on the initiative of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with the participation of Ukraine’s defense chief Oleksii Reznikov.