Nato allies will boost aid for Ukraine as Russian president Vladimir Putin continues to wield winter as a weapon of war because his forces are failing on the battlefield, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said.
“We have delivered generators and spare parts, and the allies are helping to rebuild destroyed infrastructure,” he said ahead of a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in Bucharest, adding the gathering would serve as a platform to ramp up western aid to rebuild Ukraine‘s energy infrastructure.
It comes after the most recent UK latest intelligence update suggested Russia’s semi-permanent tactical formations have often proved insufficient in the Ukraine war and are now likely not being deployed on the warfront.
“Over the last three months, Russian forces in Ukraine have likely largely stopped deploying as Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs),” the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update.
BTGs are task-based motorised rifle or tank battalion-plus-sized combat units prepared to perform semi-independent combined arms combat missions and are comparatively smaller than most other military units. The MoD said they had played a “major part” in Russia’s military doctrine over the past decade.
