Ukrainian troops, thought to be the last fighting Russian forces in Mariupol, have been told to stop the defence of the city.
The Azov regiment had been ordered only to "save lives of soldiers" in the port - a key military objective for Vladimir Putin, which has been under bombardment for weeks.
The regiment says civilians and badly wounded soldiers have been evacuated from Mariupol's Azovstal plant, while those who have died there are still being removed, according to a video statement from Denys Prokopenko, commander of the regiment.
"We have constantly emphasised the three most important conditions for us: civilians, wounded and dead," he said.
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"The civilians have been evacuated. The heavily wounded received the necessary assistance and they were evacuated, to be later exchanged and delivered to territory controlled by Ukraine."
He added that in the future he hoped relatives would be able to "bury their soldiers with honour".
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More than 1,700 defenders of the city's steel plant have surrendered since Monday, according to Russian officials.
Mariupol has been a key target for Putin since the war began and the city has been devastated after coming under a barrage of attacks.
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Injured Ukrainian troops leave Azovstal
At one point, it was estimated thousands sheltered underneath the plant, including hundreds of civilians, and there have been multiple evacuations underway in recent weeks.
Before the war, Mariupol had a population of about 400,000, but this has fallen dramatically to less than a quarter of the original population, with those remaining facing a daily struggle with severe shortages of food, clean water, and electricity.
Aid has not been able to reach the city and evacuating civilians has been extremely difficult.
Taking the strategically-important port city would give Russia its first major success in a war that has seen its military fail to gain the upper hand against ferocious Ukrainian defence.
British military intelligence said today Russia is likely to further reinforce its operations in the Donbas once it finally secures the southern port city.
Despite tough talk from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey is likely to ultimately greenlight NATO membership for Finland and Sweden. The military alliance will just have to pay a price first.
Ankara has raised objections to the two Nordic countries’ bids to join NATO, blocking the organization from proceeding with the accession process. Turkish officials have accused both Finland and Sweden of supporting Kurdish “terrorists” — an issue related to a militant group in Turkey — while also expressing concerns about arms export restrictions.
“NATO is a security alliance, and Turkey will not agree on jeopardizing this security,” the Turkish leader said earlier this week.
Yet current and former officials and diplomats say Turkey’s motivations likely go beyond simply wanting Stockholm and Helsinki to change their policies. Erdoğan is in the middle of protracted negotiations with the U.S. over the purchase of fighter jets. He also likely sees a chance to score political points domestically with his international pugilism over “terrorism.”
Now, in a flurry of activity, diplomats are racing to figure out what will get Erdoğan to budge, not wanting Finland and Sweden’s bids to linger, which would give Russia longer to meddle before the countries have fully joined the alliance.
“The price is unknown at the moment, but that there will be a price is clear,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a former head of NATO.
It’s a pattern
While Turkey has a track record of supporting NATO expansion, Erdoğan has experience using big alliance decisions to elicit concessions.
In 2009, Turkey objected to appointing Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO’s top official, only relenting after high-level talks. De Hoop Scheffer, who was the outgoing secretary-general at the time, recalled overnight negotiations involving U.S. President Barack Obama.
Ultimately, the former alliance chief told POLITICO, Turkey relented on Rasmussen’s appointment and “got as a prize an assistant secretary-general in NATO.”
Finland and Sweden’s applications are now giving Erdoğan another opportunity to capitalize on NATO’s consensus-based model, as well as to rally his base ahead of elections scheduled for next year.
De Hoop Scheffer said a combination of factors could be behind Turkey’s maneuvering.
The first, he said, is internal politics. Erdoğan has always styled his appeal in part on talking tough about terrorism, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is a long-time foe in that campaign. Turkey, the U.S. and the EU have labeled the militant group a terrorist organization, although the designation is considered outdated by some in the U.S. and EU. Erdoğan, conversely, frequently uses the group as a rallying cry.
“You can always rally large parts of the population by linking terrorism and PKK,” the former secretary-general said.
The second, according to De Hoop Scheffer, is that Finnish and Swedish accession would “change the internal political weight balance inside NATO, because you have two fully-fledged and heavily armed” democracies joining the alliance.
Finland and Sweden are both expected to significantly add to NATO’s defensive capabilities. Finland can offer naval power in the Baltic sea and a presence in the Arctic north, where Russia has shown interest in expanding its reach. Sweden boasts an advanced air force.
It’s also about military equipment
Another critical element is lingering tensions between Turkey and the U.S. over fighter jet purchases.
For years, Ankara was a reliable customer for U.S. defense companies, buying up scores of F-16 fighter jets. Turkey later turned to the more advanced F-35s as those began to roll out.
But the relationship ruptured in 2019 when Turkey purchased the Russian-made S-400 missile system — a move the U.S. said would put NATO aircraft flying over Turkey at risk. In response, the U.S. kicked Ankara out of the F-35 program and slapped sanctions on the Turkish defense industry.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg greets Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a NATO summit in 2021 | Francois Mori/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
After that spat, Turkey began toying with the idea of buying Russian fighter jets and even developing its own program. However, it is also seeking to both upgrade its F-16 fleet and purchase new F-16 planes. The request has been pending for months with the Biden administration and U.S. Congress.
“That price might well be that the Americans lift their block on F-16s,” De Hoop Scheffer said.
The U.S. seems inclined to pay that price. The U.S. State Department has tentatively supported Turkey’s request, which is now being considered by the White House and Congress.
The matter was one of the open questions surrounding a meeting in New York on Wednesday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
Çavuşoğlu hinted that NATO members could be part of the solution to the impasse. Speaking alongside Blinken, Çavuşoğlu stressed that he understood Finland and Sweden’s security concerns, “but Turkey’s security concerns should be also met. And this is also one of — one issue that we should continue discussing with friends and allies, including United States.”
That issue may include the F-16s. In separate comments published in Turkish media that day, the Turkish foreign minister underscored that talks about the potential sale are “going on positively.”
In Helsinki, there is also a sense that Turkey’s hold may be linked to its current tussle with the U.S.
“Finland has a good relationship with Turkey and we share the objective to fight against terrorism,” said one senior Finnish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think our bilateral relations are any problem. This is possibly about Turkey’s issues with the U.S.”
But it’s still about Kurdish groups
Some analysts insist, however, that the Finnish and Swedish approach to the PKK remains key for Turkey’s government.
“We can’t solve this problem” by simply smoothing out the Washington-Ankara relationship, said Sinan Ülgen, a former Turkish diplomat who is now a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe think tank.
It might help speed the process, he added, but “there’s no way to escape” addressing Sweden and Finland’s policies on Kurdish groups.
The negotiation with Sweden is expected to be tougher than with Finland, according to Ülgen.
“There are bigger expectations from Sweden,” he said, referring to what he described as Stockholm’s “more lenient approach to the activities of what Turkey considers to be a terrorist organization, the PKK, and its offshoots.”
The Swedish government “will have to demonstrate that it has changed its outlook on this,” he said.
Swedish and Finnish officials have said that they are open to dialogue with Turkey. And senior figures from across the alliance have insisted a consensus on Helsinki and Stockholm’s accession will be found.
“I am confident that we will come to a quick decision to welcome both Sweden and Finland to join the NATO family,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a press conference on Thursday.
“When an ally, an important ally as Turkey, raises security concerns,” he said, “the only way to deal with that is to sit down and find ways to find a common ground.”
The same message was echoed in The Hague, where German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
“My confidence is very high” that Turkey’s opposition can be overcome, Scholz said.
“I trust that it will eventually be possible to find a common position on the accession of Finland and Sweden,” Rutte agreed.
Paul McLeary and Hans von der Burchard contributed reporting.
Russia has claimed the surrender of 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol as pro-Kremlin separatists promise to turn the city into a seaside resort.
Denis Pushilin, leader of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic, admitted that 60 per cent of the city had been destroyed after two and a half months of heavy fighting.
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As reports of human rights abuses mount in Mariupol, Pushilin said that the Russian authorities would turn the port into a tourist destination. He said that the Azovstal network of factories and warehouses would be demolished to make way for a business park.
Pro-Putin forces have conceded that 60 per cent of Mariupol is in ruins
OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The Russian defence ministry claimed that a further 771 Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov battalion had laid down arms since yesterday, bringing the total number who
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday said Warsaw would defend Sweden and Finland if they were attacked during their accession process to military alliance NATO.
“I want to make it clear that in the event of an attack on Sweden and Finland during their accession process, Poland will come to their aid,” he said, speaking during the think tank-led Strategic Ark conference in Warsaw.
Ending more than half a century of military neutrality, the two countries officially submitted their applications Wednesday to join the military alliance, in response to Russia’s deadly war on Ukraine.
There is no formalized timeline for joining NATO, although new countries are required to fulfil several steps, including taking part in official accession negotiations at the military alliance headquarters in Brussels and submit “declarations of commitment.” While NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has hinted that Finland and Sweden’s applications could be “fast-tracked,” analysts say the process could still take several months.
Turkey has also threatened to block the two Nordic nations’ accession bids, accusing them of support for Kurdish groups that Ankara considers terrorist organizations. All NATO members must unanimously approve a candidate country before it can join the alliance.
The U.K. has also pledged to provide military assistance to Sweden and Finland if they come under attack during their transition to membership, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week signing bilateral security deals with the two countries.
At the conference, Morawiecki also called for the creation of permanent NATO bases on the alliance’s eastern flank, and said, “Poland is ready to build such bases.”
The Polish prime minister also slammed Russia as “terrorists” and called for Western countries to continue isolating Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sweden must cut its ties with a Syrian Kurdish militia or Turkey will continue to block its application to Nato, Ankara’s ambassador to Stockholm has warned amid a deepening crisis over the Scandinavian country’s bid to join the transatlantic defence alliance.
Emre Yunt told the Financial Times that severing links with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was “the most important” of Turkey’s demands after president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stunned his Nato allies by saying he could not accept the membership of Sweden and Finland due to their support for groups that Turkey views as terrorists.
Erdoğan, who on Wednesday blocked Nato’s initial decision to process requests by the two Nordic countries to join the military alliance, lambasted them for refusing Turkish requests to extradite 30 people accused of having links to terror groups.
But Yunt said that Ankara wanted Stockholm, seen by Turkish officials as a bigger problem than Helsinki, to go further. “They have to cut their ties with YPG,” he said. “That is the most important.”
The YPG is an armed Kurdish militia that spearheaded the campaign against Isis in Syria, after the jihadi group seized swaths of territory in 2014 and led terror attacks throughout Europe. It received weapons and training from the US-led anti-Isis coalition, which was supported by troops from Sweden.
But the YPG also has close links to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has waged a bloody armed struggle against the Turkish state since the 1980s and is recognised as a terrorist organisation by Sweden as well as the EU and the US. Western support for groups that are affiliated with it has long been a source of anger in Turkey, both among officials and the public.
Swedish officials have previously argued that Syrian Kurdish forces have played a crucial role in the fight against Isis and are important to the stability of Syria.
But Yunt, who has served as Turkey’s ambassador to Stockholm since 2017, said that Ankara was angry that the Swedish defence minister and other senior officials had held discussions with YPG commanders in recent years. “They are claiming that this group is fighting with Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for Isis. “But Daesh doesn’t exist any more.”
Ankara’s demands pose a dilemma for Sweden as it strives to unblock its bid for Nato membership without being seen at home as making too many concessions to Turkey’s authoritarian president.
Stockholm’s Social Democrat government faces tough parliamentary elections in September and has already created tension with the left of its party and the ex-communists by signing up to Nato. The country has a significant Kurdish diaspora and there is widespread sympathy for the Kurdish cause.
“There is a delicate political and diplomatic balance to be struck between meeting Turkish demands and not alienating the internal base of the party in advance of elections in September,” said Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies.
Swedish prime minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish president Sauli Niinistö hope that US president Joe Biden, whom they are meeting at the White House on Thursday, can unblock the process. Some analysts have suggested that Turkey could be hoping to pressure the US into granting approval for its request to buy new F-16 fighter jets.
But Yunt said Turkey’s stance on Sweden had “nothing to do with our relations with the United States”.
Andersson repeated on Tuesday that she wanted to speak to Erdoğan and promised a new chapter in relations between the two countries. Yunt warned, however, that “talking to us without changing their policy will not achieve anything”.
Asked to comment on the Turkish demand, Sweden’s foreign ministry said: “A series of diplomatic efforts is under way. We have no further comment.”
The European Commission has announced a 210 billion euro ($220bn) plan to end its dependency on Russian fossil fuels in a span of five years and speed up its transition to green energy.
The move comes as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Europe’s top gas supplier, has prompted the EU to rethink its energy policies amid sharpened concerns of supply shocks.
“We are taking our ambition to yet another level to make sure that we become independent from Russian fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday in Brussels when announcing the package, dubbed REPowerEU.
Moscow supplies 40 percent of the bloc’s gas and 27 percent of its imported oil, and EU countries are struggling to agree on sanctions against the latter.
The bloc’s dash to ditch Russian energy stems from a combination of voluntary and mandatory actions. Both reflect the political discomfort of helping fund Russia’s military campaign in a country that neighbours the EU and wants to join the bloc.
An EU ban on coal from Russia is due to start in August, and the bloc has pledged to try to reduce demand for Russian gas by two-thirds by year’s end. Meanwhile, a proposed EU oil embargo has hit a roadblock from Hungary and other landlocked countries that worry about the cost of switching to alternative sources.
The measures include a mix of EU laws, non-binding schemes, and recommendations to governments in the EU’s 27 member countries, who are largely in charge of their national energy policies.
Taken together, Brussels expects them to require 210 billion euros in extra investments by 2027 and 300 billion euros ($314bn) by 2030 on top of those already needed to meet the bloc’s 2030 climate target. Ultimately, it said the investments would slash Europe’s fossil fuel import bill.
“RePowerEU will help us to save more energy, to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels and, most importantly, to kick-start investments on a new scale,” von der Leyen said.
Those investments include 86 billion euros ($90bn) for renewable energy and 27 billion ($28bn) for hydrogen infrastructure, 29 billion euros ($30bn) for power grids and 56 billion euros ($59bn) for energy savings and heat pumps.
The Commission said some investments in fossil fuel infrastructure would be required – 10 billion euros ($10bn) for a dozen gas and liquefied natural gas projects, and up to two billion euros ($2.1bn) for oil, targeting land-locked Central and Eastern European countries that lack access to non-Russian supply.
Campaigners said those investments risked locking the EU into long-term reliance on CO2-emitting gas, worsening climate change and high energy prices. The Commission said new gas infrastructure should be able to switch to carry renewable hydrogen in future.
Brussels wants countries to finance the measures using the EU’s COVID-19 recovery fund, which contains more than 200 billion euros ($209bn) of unspent loans.
The Commission will also sell extra carbon market permits from a reserve over the next few years to raise 20 billion euros ($21bn). Some analysts warned that could dampen carbon prices, undermining the price signal to shift to low-carbon energy.
To spearhead the plans, the Commission proposed a higher legally-binding target to get 45 percent of EU energy from renewable sources by 2030, replacing its current 40 percent proposal.
That would see the EU more than double its renewable energy capacity to 1,236 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, and be aided by a law allowing simpler one-year permits for wind and solar projects. The EU also proposed phasing in obligations for countries to fit new buildings with solar panels.
Another target would cut EU energy consumption by 13 percent by 2030 against expected levels, replacing its current 9 percent proposal. The EU is negotiating laws to renovate buildings faster to use less energy, and said voluntary actions such as turning down thermostats could cut gas and oil demand by 5 percent.
The legally binding targets require approval from EU countries and legislators.
The EU plan includes a short-term dash for non-Russian gas supplies to replace the 155 billion cubic metres (4,061cu feet) Europe buys from Moscow each year. Europe’s gas demand is expected to drop 30 percent by 2030 to meet climate targets, but for now, countries rely on the fuel to heat homes, power industry and produce electricity.
The EU aims to have a memorandum of understanding with Egypt and Israel by mid-year on supplying LNG, and aims to boost supply from countries including Canada and Algeria. Brussels will also launch a scheme for countries to jointly buy gas to attempt to negotiate better contract terms.
Turkey has held up Nato’s plans to bring Finland and Sweden into the military alliance, throwing into doubt hopes that the two Nordic countries would swiftly join.
Nato ambassadors met on Wednesday with the aim of opening accession talks on the same day the two countries submitted their applications but Ankara’s opposition stopped a vote, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The move raises doubt that Nato will be able to approve the first stage of Finland’s and Sweden’s applications within one or two weeks, as secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg indicated. It also sets the stage for several days of intense diplomacy between the US, Turkey, Finland and Sweden.
A Turkish official confirmed Ankara had put the brakes on the process, but insisted it was not ruling out the prospect of Sweden and Finland joining.
“We’re not saying they can’t be Nato members,” the official said. “Just that we need to be on the same wavelength, the same page, about the threat that we’re facing.”
The official added: “We want to reach an agreement . . . The sooner we can reach an agreement, the sooner the membership discussions can start.”
All 30 existing members of Nato have to ratify Finland’s and Sweden’s applications but that process only starts once the defence alliance issues an accession protocol and formally invites the two countries to join.
Nato declined to comment, other than to repeat Stoltenberg’s remarks that “the security interest of all allies have to be taken into account [and] we are determined to work through all issues and reach a rapid conclusion”.
US president Joe Biden, who will play host to the leaders of Finland and Sweden at the White House on Thursday to discuss their applications, said he strongly supported the membership bids. He added that he looked forward to “working with the US Congress and our Nato allies to quickly bring Finland and Sweden into the strongest defensive alliance in history”.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has attacked western allies for failing to respect Ankara’s “sensitivity” on terrorism and accused the latest Nato applicants of refusing to extradite 30 people accused of terrorism-related charges in his country.
“We asked for 30 terrorists. They said: ‘We are not giving them’,” he said in a speech to parliament. “You won’t hand over terrorists but you want to join Nato. We cannot say yes to a security organisation that is devoid of security.”
Erdoğan, who has the power to veto the Nordic countries’ admission to Nato, said the alliance’s members should “understand, respect and support” Turkey’s sensitivities about these groups, but added: “None of our allies has shown the respect that we expected to our sensitivity.”
Helsinki and Stockholm’s decision to pursue membership of the alliance, which would redraw Europe’s security map, comes after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a non-Nato member that shares a border with Russia.
Erdoğan’s opposition to their admission casts a shadow over what Nato leaders had sought to cast as a historic moment for the alliance.
“This is a good day at a critical moment for our security,” Stoltenberg said on Wednesday as the Finnish and Swedish ambassadors handed in their requests at a ceremony at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels.
Stoltenberg pledged Nato was “determined to work through all issues and reach rapid conclusions”, adding: “All allies agree on the importance of Nato enlargement. We all agree that we must stand together, and we all agree that this is a historic moment that we all must seize.”
Finland’s president Sauli Niinistö, who will visit Biden together with Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson, signalled that rapid US ratification could speed up the countries’ membership bids and even help overcome Turkish opposition: “If we have a quick process there, it helps the whole process and timetable.”
Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, said he spoke with his Turkish counterpart on Wednesday. US secretary of state Antony Blinken was also due to meet Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu later in New York. “Finland and Sweden are working directly with Turkey to do this, but we’re also talking to the Turks to try to help facilitate,” Sullivan said.
Turkey, a Nato member since 1952, is aggrieved by what it sees as Sweden’s failure to crack down on members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a militia that has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state since the 1980s. It has also accused Stockholm of harbouring exiled members of the Gulen movement, a secretive Islamic sect that Ankara blames for a violent coup attempt that rocked Turkey in 2016.
Turkish pro-government newspaper Sabah on Wednesday set out a list of what it said were Ankara’s 10 demands of the Nordic countries. They included a demand to limit contacts with and financing of PKK and its affiliate in Syria, as well as a clampdown on Stockholm-based media linked to the Gulen movement.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
