NATO ponders getting more involved in anti IS-fight

BRUSSELS (AP) – NATO defense ministers have approved an expanded assistance package for Ukraine, whose military forces are battling a Russian-backed insurgency in the country’s east.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says it has become clear that risky attacks can be launched on the internet and among computer networks just as easily as they can on the battlefield.

Russian Federation continues to deny giving military help to the separatists and, having denounced Nato’s Baltic plans as an aggressive provocation, it warned the alliance against bolstering its forces in the Black Sea – close to the Crimean peninsula that the Kremlin annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

There has been little progress in implementing the so-called Minsk agreements on halting fighting in the east, giving broad autonomy to the region, holding local elections there and re-establishing Ukraine’s control over its side of long stretches of the border with Russian Federation.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada says Vladimir Putin is laying a propaganda foundation to wage a broader war against the West – one he says will be far beyond Russia’s aggression against his own country.

The NATO disclosure followed an announcement by Stoltenberg reporting the body’s rising annual defense budget, in contrast to prior years’ budgetary reductions.

There are also plans to boost the organization’s presence in Romania.

The NATO chief stressed that the deployment – to be made on a rotational basis, not permanent so as not to infringe existing treaties with Russian Federation – was part of a much wider response to the Ukraine crisis.

Mr Grushko accused the USA of attempting “to exercise military pressure on Russia”. “Then NATO can and must react”, the newspaper quoted Stoltenberg as saying.

“Joining NATO is very important step showing that these countries are ready to be robust members of [the] Euro-Atlantic community, that they understand and accept all rules, they accept the idea of superiority of the law, they accept the idea of division of powers within society, they accept the idea of elections without any limitations”, he said.

Canada has already deployed about 200 military trainers to Ukraine, and supplied protective equipment and other non-lethal aid to help its ally cope with the ongoing threat from Russian Federation.