{"id":463647,"date":"2026-09-01T17:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/01\/ucraina-kallas-guerra-sempre-piu-spietata-non-e-vicina-alla-fine\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T18:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:12:26","slug":"ukraine-kallas-the-war-is-becoming-increasingly-brutal-it-is-not-nearing-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/01\/ukraine-kallas-the-war-is-becoming-increasingly-brutal-it-is-not-nearing-an-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine, Kallas: “The war is becoming increasingly brutal; it is not nearing an end”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine is becoming \u201cincreasingly ruthless and destructive\u201d and \u201cunfortunately is far from over.\u201d But the threat to Europe is also growing, and the countries of the European Union and NATO have not been quick enough to address the shortcomings identified. This is why a new High-Level Group on Defence will be established next week. The European Union\u2019s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas<\/strong>, confirmed this at a press conference after an<\/span> informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Wicklow, Ireland, the country currently holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. <\/p>\n

Kallas emphasises that \u201cthe Russian army is bogged down on the ground, which is why it is killing civilians from the air.\u201d A \u201cpremeditated terrorism\u201d by Moscow<\/strong> that is not confined to Ukraine. \u201cIn the Black Sea, Russian attacks on ships carrying grain are deliberately jeopardising global food supplies,\u201d while Europe is being hit \u201cby a wave of increasingly kinetic hybrid attacks.\u201d For the former Estonian prime minister, these are clear actions with a specific aim: \u201cRussia wants to frighten us and dissuade us from supporting Ukraine. It will not succeed. On the contrary, we will increase our support for Ukraine and invest in our defence. This is the best way to stop Putin.\u201d <\/p>\n

How can this be done? The High Representative explains that the EU is \u201cplanning the toughest sanctions against Russia to date\u201d to target \u201cthe Russian military industry, so as to weaken their military production.\u201d On another level, the High Representative notes and welcomes the fact that \u201cUkraine is putting pressure on Russia\u201d and that Kyiv\u2019s drones \u201care disrupting Russian logistics and striking refineries in the heart of Russian territory, causing the biggest fuel crisis in Russia in decades.\u201d The toll on the Kremlin stands at \u201cover 30,000 soldiers a month\u201d lost, turning the past few months into \u201ca difficult summer for Putin.\u201d <\/p>\n

The summer has been tough for Kyiv too. Last night alone, Russian attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding area left at least four people dead, and today (1 September) President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> visited one of the schools in the Kyiv region, which has been rebuilt after being completely destroyed by Russia in 2022. \u201cI would like to thank the parents who, despite the air-raid sirens and Russian attacks, are staying in Ukraine and, together with the teachers, are doing their utmost to ensure that our children can study at home, in Ukraine,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

So the end is not in sight. \u201cAir defence remains our top priority, but interceptors are in short supply everywhere,\u201d emphasises Kallas, who thanks the Member States \u201cfor reconsidering their stocks.\u201d With the war in Iran, the US has scaled back its supply of Patriot interceptors to allies and to Kyiv, while Zelenskyy needs at least 300 to get through the coming winter. For the High Representative, therefore, \u201cin particular, Patriot missiles nearing their expiry date should be sent or sold to Ukraine\u201d by EU countries: a subtle appeal to Spain and Greece and their stocks of these missiles<\/a>. \u201cMember States are also considering the possibility of reordering priorities and contacting partners,\u201d notes Kallas, pointing out that \u201cevery interceptor we supply to Ukraine means one less Russian missile hitting a Ukrainian school, home or hospital.\u201d <\/p>\n

Among other measures to counter the Kremlin, Kallas points out that \u201cEU naval operations are stepping up action against the Russian shadow fleet and are now taking a leading role in boarding suspect vessels, thanks to the diplomatic efforts of EU delegations around the world.\u201d In fact, \u201cfewer and fewer countries are allowing these vessels to sail under their flags\u201d and \u201chundreds of vessels have removed their flags.\u201d <\/p>\n

As well as in Ukraine, the EU is stepping up its efforts in the defence sector. It is against this backdrop that Kallas announced the launch \u201cnext week of a new High-Level Group on Defence<\/strong>, comprising senior political and military leaders from various EU countries, as well as from the UK and Ukraine.\u201d The starting point is that \u201cEurope is investing in defence more than ever before, but spending alone is no automatic guarantee of success.\u201d The litmus test is that, \u201cdespite the rising threat level,\u201d \u201cwe have not been quick enough to address the gaps in Europe\u2019s conventional capabilities within NATO that we have identified.\u201d Hence, the Group\u2019s objective is to \u201cbring together some of the brightest minds in the field of security and defence to provide truly innovative solutions\u201d to \u201cclose these gaps more quickly and be more effective. Especially now that the security threat in Europe is much more tangible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the informal Defence Council meeting in Ireland, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs also announced the launch of a new High-Level Group on Defence to help countries address their shortcomings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":463630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809,25707],"tags":[27336,35558,35559,34031,31897,31521,31698,27649,25803,33394,30781,30272],"class_list":["post-463647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","category-world-politics","tag-difesa-aerea","tag-gruppo-contatto-difesa","tag-kallas","tag-mosca-en-2","tag-nato-en-10","tag-paesi-en","tag-patriot-en","tag-russia-in-2","tag-ue","tag-ukraine-in-2","tag-fleet-shadow-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463648,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463647\/revisions\/463648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}