NATO foreign ministers were expected to agree Tuesday to keep a continuous military presence in Eastern Europe and aid Ukraine against Russian aggression as a nearly two-month-old ceasefire in that country barely holds and relations between the alliance and Moscow worsens.
At a news conference in which he took a hard line against Moscow, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday those measures would include activating a “spearhead force” next year that would serve as a continuous presence for the alliance in Eastern Europe, and a number of trust funds to aid Ukraine ‘s military in areas such as command and control, logistics and cybersecurity.
“Russia’s aggressive actions have undermined Euro-Atlantic security. While efforts for lasting peace continue, we see a significant military build-up in and around Ukraine. Large transfers of Russian advanced weapons, equipment and military personnel to violent separatists. And a major increase in Russian military activity around Europe and beyond,” Stoltenberg said.
He said the NATO force in Eastern Europe, which has commitments from Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, would be an interim solution until a permanent rapid-response force that alliance leaders agreed to create earlier this year is ready in 2016.
“We get more readiness sooner than expected by establishing the interim force,” he said.
The new deployments to Eastern Europe are the latest sign of how quickly relations between NATO and Russia have deteriorated since Russian forces seized Crimea from Ukraine in February. Many of the alliance’s new members — especially the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have been pushing for a stronger NATO military presence as Russian forces increasingly test their defenses and Russian officials ramp up rhetorical assaults against them.
In a pointed reference to Russian objections to discussions of Ukraine possibly joining the alliance, Stoltenberg said, “No third country outside NATO can veto the enlargement of NATO.” Officials also released a “fact sheet” about alliance relations with Russia that pushed back against Moscow’s claims that NATO promised not to expand eastward into former Soviet-bloc territories or station new military forces there.
Meanwhile, fighting raged in spite of the ceasefire at the airport in Donetsk, one of two regions in eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists have formed independent “people’s republics.” Ukrainian officials said the rebels were backed by Russian special forces, and later announced that a shaky truce had been worked out.
Russia continued to supply the rebels over the weekend with what Moscow claimed was “humanitarian” aid. Stoltenberg called the convoys a violation of the Sept. 5 ceasefire agreement, in which Russia promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and not unilaterally violate its international border.
“The best way of improving the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine is by respecting the ceasefire,” he said.
Ukraine has pressed NATO to provide arms and other military equipment to counter Russian support for the rebels, but alliance members have been reluctant to be drawn into the conflict. Though the United States recently stepped up nonlethal aid to Ukraine’s military, the Obama administration has resisted calls from some lawmakers to send arms as well.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, in an interview with Reuters on Sunday, urged the United States and other Western countries to change their minds.
“It is a mistake by our European and American partners to say providing weapons and military technical assistance would create the potential for escalation,” Klimkin told Reuters. “On the contrary, it would be an important step toward de-escalating the situation because no one would go further if Ukrainian military forces get stronger.”
