''...Russian
President Vladimir Putin has said that the conflict in Ukraine was
deliberately manufactured by “unprofessional actions” of the West....''
Tue Sep 22, 2015 2:47PM
The session of the National Security and Defense Council in Kiev, Ukraine, on September 22, 2015 (AFP photo)
Ukraine
and NATO have signed a series of agreements on increasing the Western
military alliance’s presence in the European country, which has been hit
by conflict in the eastern regions.
Ukraine President
Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday that the agreements are aimed at
strengthening cooperation between Kiev and NATO in the sphere of
strategic communications, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
“Three
important agreements have been signed. An agreement on the status of
NATO’s office in Ukraine, the declaration on extending cooperation with
NATO and a roadmap in the sphere of strategic communications,”
Poroshenko said.
The agreements seek to increase coordination between the two sides on naval issues and carrying out special operations.
The military and civilian offices of NATO will be united and have greater functions and powers. NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pledged on Tuesday to help the
government in Kiev defend itself against pro-Russians in Ukraine’s
troubled east. Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko, right, and NATO Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg, center, listen to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk during the National Security and Defense Council in Kiev,
Ukraine, on September 22, 2015. (AFP photo)
NATO
has said it would continue increasing the military presence in Eastern
Europe. It will boost the response force to 40,000 troops and deploy
additional weapons in the east of the continent.
Critics fear that
NATO's increasing presence could harm a truce agreement, dubbed Minsk
II, which was reached between Ukraine’s warring sides at a summit
attended by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany in the
Belarusian capital city of Minsk on February 11 and 12. The agreement
introduced measures such as a ceasefire, which officially went into
effect on February 15, the pullout of heavy weapons, and constitutional
reforms in Ukraine by the end of the year.
The shaky deal failed
to end the deadly violence in the mainly Russian-speaking regions of
eastern Ukraine, with both sides trading accusations of breaching the
ceasefire deal. Ukrainian
servicemen are seen on a road at Svitlodarsk, approaching Debaltseve in
eastern Ukraine on February 15, 2015. (AFP photo)
The
conflict in Ukraine broke out in March 2014 following a referendum in
the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, in which people voted overwhelmingly
for reunification with Russia.
The situation, however, degenerated
into a major armed conflict after Kiev dispatched troops to Lugansk and
Donetsk in April 2014 in an attempt to suppress pro-Russia forces
there.
Some 8,000 people have been killed and about 18,000 injured since April 2014, according to UN figures.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has said that the conflict in Ukraine was
deliberately manufactured by “unprofessional actions” of the West.
