NATO says Russia blatantly violating Ukraine sovereignty

This was published 5 years ago

NATO says Russia blatantly violating Ukraine sovereignty

NATO told Russia on Friday to halt its "illegal" military actions in Ukraine after the West accused Moscow of direct involvement in the escalating conflict

Western fears of wider confrontation have spiralled after NATO said Russia had sent troops to fight in Ukraine and funnelled huge amounts of heavy weaponry to the pro-Kremlin rebels.

"We condemn in the strongest terms Russia's continued disregard of its international obligations," NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after an emergency meeting of the alliance on the crisis.


Warning: NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says Russia's actions are a blatant violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.


Kiev and the West have accused Russian troops of being behind a lightning counter-offensive that has seen the rebels seize swathes of territory from Ukrainian government forces, dramatically turning the tide in the four-month conflict.

And in a move certain to anger Kiev's former masters in Moscow, Mr Rasmussen also said NATO was not closing the door to Ukraine's possible membership of the transatlantic alliance after the government said it wanted to join.

Earlier Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said his government would seek to join NATO and was submitting the relevant bill to parliament.

The bill, if passed, would forbid Ukraine from taking a decision on membership in any other economic, political, or other unions that would prevent the country from eventually joining the European Union.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko is due to travel to a NATO summit in Newport, Wales next week where he is scheduled to meet with US President Barack Obama.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied Moscow is fuelling the conflict or having any troops on the ground in the former Soviet state.

And on Friday, he demanded that the Ukrainian government hold "substantial" talks with the separatists who took up arms against Kiev in April, apparently emboldened by Russia's annexation of Crimea the month before.

"I believe that what is happening in Ukraine right now is in principle our common colossal tragedy and it is necessary to do everything for it to stop as soon as possible," he said.

Ten Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 30 wounded in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, Kiev's security and defence council said on Friday.

Fighting between government forces and rebels has intensified since separatist advances opened a new front in the conflict this week just as Ukraine's army appeared to have gained the upper hand by virtually encircling the separatists in their main strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Mr Putin said Kiev's operation in eastern Ukraine was reminiscent of the World War II Nazi siege of Leningrad.

"Small villages and large cities surrounded by the Ukrainian army which is directly hitting residential areas with the aim of destroying the infrastructure... It sadly reminds me the events of the Second World War, when German fascist ... occupants surrounded our cities," Mr Putin told a youth camp outside Moscow.

The new rebel advance has raised fears that the Kremlin could be seeking to create a land corridor between Russia and Crimea, the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

The sharp escalation came just days after Mr Putin held talks with Mr Porokshenko but failed to make any significant breakthrough.

NATO on Thursday said Russia had sent at least 1000 troops to fight alongside the rebels, along with air defence systems, artillery, tanks and armoured vehicles, and had massed 20,000 troops near the border.




But Mr Putin dismissed the Western pressure, symbolically describing the insurgents as the defenders of New Russia, a Tsarist-era term for Moscow's former imperial holdings in the region that the strongman has revived since annexing Crimea.

He praised rebel successes in halting Kiev's advances in a counter-offensive in the south-east that has left government troops battling for survival in the town of Ilovaysk.

He called on rebel forces to open a "humanitarian corridor" for the besieged Ukrainian troops.

The latest tensions sent the Russian ruble nosediving to a record low against the dollar on Friday and pushed stock markets down.



AFP, Reuters

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