North Atlantic Treaty Organization
September 4, 2014
NATO leaders pledge support to Ukraine at Wales Summit
NATO leaders at the Wales Summit on Thursday (4 September 2014) pledged to provide strong support to help Ukraine improve its own security at a meeting with Ukraine President Poroshenko. “Our support is concrete and tangible,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “We highly value Ukraine’s contributions to our operations and the NATO Response Force. Ukraine has stood by NATO. Now in these difficult times, NATO stands by Ukraine.”
The Secretary General said that Allies have established “a comprehensive and tailored package of measures” to help Ukraine. The focus of NATO support will be on four areas; rehabilitation for injured troops, cyber defence, logistics, and command and control and communications. NATO’s assistance to Ukraine to boost cooperation will amount to around 15 million euros.
Thursday’s NATO-Ukraine Commission strongly condemned Russia’s violations of international law. “Russia must stop its aggressive actions against Ukraine, withdraw its thousands of troops from Ukraine and the border regions, and stop supporting the separatists in Ukraine,” said the Secretary General. He also called on Russia to reverse its illegal and illegitimate self-declared “annexation” of Crimea, which Allies do not recognise. Mr. Fogh Rasmussen added that an independent, sovereign and stable Ukraine, firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law “is key to Euro-Atlantic security.”
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