Russia gets Nato red light
Further move into Ukraine will be ‘historic mistake’, alliance warns
NATO’s secretary-general warned Russia yesterday that if it were to encroach into eastern Ukraine there would be “grave consequences” for its relationship with the alliance.
Police detained 70 people occupying a regional administration building in eastern Ukraine overnight, but pro-Moscow protesters held out in a standoff in two other cities in what Kiev called a Russianled plan to dismember the country.
Kiev says the seizure of public buildings in eastern Ukraine’s mainly Russianspeaking industrial heartland on Sunday night is a replay of events in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed last month.
“If Russia were to intervene further in Ukraine it would be a historic mistake,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference in Paris. “It would have grave consequences for our relationship with Russia and would further isolate Russia internationally.”
Rasmussen said it was premature to talk about a military response were Russia to move into eastern Ukraine, but urged Moscow to pull back the “tens of thousands of troops” that had massed on Ukraine’s borders. “We have all plans in place to ensure defence of our allies,” he said. “It is obvious the evolving security situation in Ukraine and along its borders makes it necessary to review our defence plans and look at how we could strengthen our collective defence.”
He said Nato was reviewing a 1997 cooperation agreement with Russia and subsequent Rome declaration of 2002 that prevented Nato setting up bases in eastern and central Europe, and its foreign ministers would decide on that in June.
“Those decisions will be impacted by the situation in Ukraine and Russian behaviour,” Rasmussen said. When asked whether France should cancel a deal to sell two helicopter carriers before the first one is delivered later this year, Rasmussen said: “I am not going to interfere with national decisions, but I am confident France will take the necessary decisions taking into account the concerns that have been expressed.”
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday dismissed US accusations that Moscow was destabilising Ukraine and said the situation could improve only if Kiev took account of the interests of mainly Russian-speaking regions.
Moscow and Washington are at loggerheads over the conflict in Ukraine, where Russia has seized Crimea and says it has the right to protect Russian speakers and ethnic Russians from what it describes as a threat from far-right leaders in Kiev.
US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Lavrov on Monday that Russia would suffer consequences if it further destabilised Ukraine.
But at a news conference in Moscow with Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chikoti, Lavrov said: “One should not seek to put the blame on someone else.”
Ukrainian law enforcement bodies are trying to take back control of public buildings in eastern Ukraine that were seized by pro-Moscow crowds in assaults which Kiev has accused Moscow of orchestrating to dismember the country.
Lavrov said: “We are convinced. . . that the situation cannot be calmed down. . .if the Ukrainian authorities go on ignoring interests of the southeastern regions of the country.” — Reuters