MOSCOW, June 4 (RIA Novosti) – NATO is currently considering numerous assistance requests from Ukraine that include lethal aid, General Philip Breedlove, the alliance’s supreme commander in Europe, said Wednesday according to Reuters.
On Tuesday NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that NATO will agree on its aid package for Ukraine by late June.
Ukraine is not a NATO member, and its non-aligned status is sealed by the constitution.
Following Crimea’s reunification with Russia, NATO took a series of measures which, as the US-led military alliance sees them, are aimed at ensuring the safety of its member states. In particular, it intensified its air patrols over the Baltic countries, deployed surveillance planes over Poland and Romania and dispatched warships to the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
Later this week, NATO defense ministers are set to meet to discuss their plans to boost military personnel in Poland, in addition to some 200 US soldiers deployed this year to the Poland’s city of Szczecin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western countries of supporting the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine at a time when Moscow was calling for sensible resolution of the crisis in the country through nationwide dialogue.
