Kiev presses NATO chief for defensive weapons

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
Ukraine pressed NATO on Tuesday for Western weaponry to help defend itself against pro-Russian separatists but the head of the alliance resisted for fear of threatening a fragile ceasefire with Russian-backed rebels.
In Kiev’s imposing Soviet-era government buildings, Ukraine’s political leadership told NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that their armed forces were no match for Russia, and needed help.
“Our heroes, our warriors belong to an army that was neglected for decades...they face aggression and need defensive weaponry,” the speaker of Parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, told Stoltenberg making his first visit to Ukraine as head of NATO, 18 months after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, sitting alongside Stoltenberg at a national security council meeting, was equally blunt in depicting a threat from Russia which, however, denies it has provided weapons to the rebels in the east.
“Defence capabilities are essential to us in the face of a nuclear country, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on modernising its army,” Yatseniuk said.
Diplomats said the issue of weaponry was raised at the Security Council, but the tone was less strident than in public.
Initially, defensive equipment, for the Ukrainians, could include more communication equipment, they said.
Hours earlier, Stoltenberg had signed agreements to help modernise the Ukrainian armed forces. — Reuters
 
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