BRUSSELS: NATO says the Russian navy is building up its presence in the Mediterranean Sea amid growing tensions over the war in Syria.
Russia has provided crucial military support for Syrian government forces, which are expected to mount an offensive in the northern Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country.
“We will not speculate on the intention of the Russian fleet, but it is important that all actors in the region exercise restraint and refrain from worsening an already disastrous humanitarian situation in Syria,” NATO’s chief spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu, said Wednesday.
She says several of the Russian ships are equipped with cruise missiles.
Russian defense officials could not be reached for comment. At least eight ships, including a missile cruiser and two missile-carrying submarines, have joined the Russian flotilla over the past three weeks. Russian media reports indicate there are around 15 Russian navy vessels in the Mediterranean overall.
Moscow has repeatedly alleged that Syrian rebels are preparing a chemical weapons attack in Idlib as a provocation to bring a Western attack on Syrian forces.
The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets said the naval buildup was connected to that prospect. “The United States and its allies have forced Russia to send a powerful sailing group to the Mediterranean,” it wrote on Tuesday.
State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the Russian reports “false-flag-type reporting.”
“We’ve seen that before where they try to put the blame — they try to put the onus on other groups and we don’t buy into that,” she said Wednesday during a regular briefing with reporters in Washington.
Western countries and independent analysts say Syrian government forces have carried out a number of chemical attacks over the course of the seven-year civil war. The US has vowed to respond if Syrian forces use chemical weapons in Idlib. Western countries carried out strikes on Syrian government forces after an alleged chemical attack earlier this year.
Both Syria and Russia deny that government forces have ever used chemical arms.
NATO reports Russian naval buildup amid Syria tensions
NATO reports Russian naval buildup amid Syria tensions
- We will not speculate on the intention of the Russian fleet, says NATO spokeswoman
- At least eight ships, including a missile cruiser and two missile-carrying submarines, have joined the Russian flotilla over the past three weeks
UN warns clock ticking for Sudan’s children
- UNICEF says in parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished
- World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan says the country is facing multiple disease outbreaks
GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that time was running out for malnourished children in Sudan and urged the world to “stop looking away.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
