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Nato leaders said on Friday they were deploying more troops to Eastern Europe after Russia began its military operation in Ukraine.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was deploying — for the first time as a defensive unit — parts of its combat-ready response force and would continue to send defence support to Ukraine.
Mr Stoltenberg did not say how many troops would be deployed, but confirmed that the move would involve land, sea and air power.
“We are deploying the Nato response force for the first time in a collective defence context. We speak about thousands of troops. We speak about air and maritime capabilities,” he said.
“Several allies have already assigned troops and forces to the Nato response force.
“We have the high readiness force, the Nato response force, and that is why we are deploying it. To prevent any misunderstanding that we are not prepared to protect all allies.”
The force can number up to 40,000 troops, but Mr Stoltenberg would only say that the entire force would not be deployed immediately.
Nato previously had about 5,000 troops stationed in Poland and the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“Russia has shattered peace on the European continent. What we have warned against for months has come to pass despite all of our efforts to find a diplomatic solution,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
The UK government said it is prepared to meet any further request from Nato’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe to extend military support.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the alliance that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions might extend beyond Ukraine.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The prime minister told the group that a catastrophe was engulfing Ukraine and President Putin was engaging in a revanchist mission to overturn post-Cold War order.
“He warned the group that the Russian president’s ambitions might not stop there and that this was a Euro-Atlantic crisis with global consequences.”
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FIXTURES
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Tuesday
Sevilla v Maribor
Spartak Moscow v Liverpool
Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk
Napoli v Feyenoord
Besiktas v RB Leipzig
Monaco v Porto
Apoel Nicosia v Tottenham Hotspur
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
Wednesday
Basel v Benfica
CSKA Moscow Manchester United
Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
Anderlecht v Celtic
Qarabag v Roma (8pm)
Atletico Madrid v Chelsea
Juventus v Olympiakos
Sporting Lisbon v Barcelona
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
