Russia poses growing military threat to NATO members, Italy says
ROME (Reuters) -Russia could have the ability to pose a military threat to NATO territory within five years, Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Thursday.
He was addressing lawmakers on the outcome of a NATO summit last week when the military alliance agreed to increase spending on defence and security.
"Allies shared concerns about the growing threat from Russia. There are no signs of conversion of Russian production to civilian purposes, not even in the event of a ceasefire," he said.
Crosetto also said Russian domestic support for the war in Ukraine, begun in 2022, apparently was intact.
Without saying where the figures came from, he said Russia has lost more than a million soldiers, including 200,000 in the first six months of this year.
"Yet Russia managed to mobilise another 300,000 in six months without any erosion of domestic consensus," he said.
Referring to the targets set last week by NATO members to increase defence and security spending as a percentage of GDP, Crosetto said Italy had already made some provisions in the budget and would not divert resources from health or pensions, confirming a Reuters report.
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte; editing by Barbara Lewis)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
24 minutes ago
- The Star
Austria deports first Syrian since civil war, says more will follow
VIENNA (Reuters) -Austria's conservative-led government said on Thursday it had carried out its first deportation of a Syrian back to their home country in almost 15 years, making it the first European Union country to do so since the outbreak of Syria's civil war. The unnamed Syrian man had been convicted of an unspecified crime in November 2018, given a seven-year sentence and stripped of his refugee status, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said, adding that he could not go into specifics. The Syrian man's legal adviser, Ruxandra Staicu, declined to specify the nature of his conviction but said he was 32. "A Syrian criminal was deported from Austria to Syria today, specifically to Damascus," Karner told reporters, pledging that more would follow soon. "I believe it is an extremely important signal that Austria is pursuing a tough, strict, forceful but fair asylum policy in that those who endanger others, criminals, will be removed from the country," he added. While EU member states including Austria and Germany have been keen to strike agreements with Syria's new Islamist-led government to enable deportations, rights groups have said it is too early to tell how the security situation will evolve and whether it is truly safe to deport people there. Rights groups are concerned that Austria's move will create a precedent, encouraging other EU member states to deport Syrians amid rising anti-migration sentiment across the bloc. "There is no reliable information on how the new regime will treat the returnee. In this volatile situation, it is irresponsible to conduct a deportation simply for PR reasons," said Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz, a lawyer and spokesperson for Asylum Coordination Austria, a platform of Austrian NGOs. TOUGH STANCE Austria's three-party ruling coalition has made a tough stance on immigration one of its hallmarks as it seeks to erode support for the far-right Freedom Party, which came first in September's parliamentary election with an even harder line on what has long been a prominent issue in national politics. Within days of President Bashar al-Assad's fall from power in December, Austria's previous government, led by the same conservative People's Party in power now, suspended the processing of Syrians' asylum claims and said it would work towards repatriating Syrians already in the country. Syrians are the top nationality among asylum seekers and refugees in Austria since 2015, Interior Ministry data show. Austrian law allows the authorities to revoke a refugee's status in some cases within five years of it being granted. "There will be, and will have to be, other deportations towards Syria. These are also being prepared," Karner said, also mentioning Afghanistan, another country that many refugees and asylum seekers in Austria come from. (Reporting by Francois MurphyAdditional reporting by Amina Ismail in Cairo Editing by Gareth Jones)
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Russia's Putin says he will speak to U.S. President Donald Trump later on Thursday
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin takes part in a ceremony opening youth centres in Russian regions via a video link at his residence outside Moscow, Russia, June 28, 2025. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY./File Photo
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Colombian foreign minister resigns amid passport printing row
FILE PHOTO: Colombian Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia attends a press conference for a ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC Forum, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, in Beijing, China May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/Pool/File Photo BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombia's Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia announced her resignation on Thursday, as President Gustavo Petro's government faces turbulence over an administrative dispute involving the printing of national passports. Sarabia had expressed dissatisfaction with the government's decision to alter a previous passport printing agreement. "In the last few days, decisions have been made that I do not agree with," Sarabia wrote in a post on X, adding that she had decided to resign out of "personal coherence and institutional respect." Sarabia, who had previously served as Petro's chief of staff, was named the South American country's top diplomat by the leftist president in January. (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Gabriel Araujo)
