Warning Ukraine’s Friends to ‘Think Twice,’ Putin Tests Advanced Missile

In Finland, lawmakers started debating whether or not to affix NATO — the newest instance of the conflict backfiring towards Russia’s targets. Mr. Putin sought to stop Ukraine from ever becoming a member of the alliance, eradicate the nation’s navy and political independence, and sow divisions inside NATO.

As an alternative, Finland and Sweden are edging towards abandoning their longstanding nonalignment, looking for NATO’s safety from an aggressive Russia. NATO is ramping up navy spending and is extra united than it has been in years, and Ukraine’s navy has put up a surprisingly powerful combat towards the bigger however usually disorganized and demoralized invading power.

The Ukraine invasion additionally has left Russia ostracized financially and economically — punctuated Wednesday at a Group of 20 finance ministers assembly. A number of members, together with Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Ukraine’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, abruptly left in protest when Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, began to talk.

America and different NATO international locations have funneled monumental portions of arms to Ukraine, and more and more these shipments embrace heavier, extra subtle and longer-range weapons — large-caliber artillery, armored automobiles, antiaircraft missiles and spare components for broken plane — drawing ominous warnings from the Kremlin.

Even Germany has reversed a long-held prohibition on sending arms to a battle zone and has beefed up its personal navy spending, however calls to go farther nonetheless and ship tanks to Ukraine have divided the federal government in Berlin.

Russia has falsely insisted for the reason that invasion started on Feb. 24 that it was placing solely navy targets, however numerous shattered, burned-out and flattened condo blocks, shops, places of work, homes and vehicles attest in any other case. Within the Donbas city of Avdiivka, close to the entrance traces, the place Russian bombardment has brought about quite a lot of civilian deaths and accidents, and pushed lots of those that stay underground, simply this week airstrikes destroyed a grocery store and an athletics retailer within the coronary heart of city.