NATO ministers boost support for Ukraine

NATO foreign ministers announced new support for Ukraine's military and slammed Moscow for backing rebel forces today in a meeting that also focused on the alliance's upcoming move to a training mission in Afghanistan.
"We strongly condemn Russia's continued and deliberate destabilisation of eastern Ukraine in breach of international law," said a statement from the NATO ministers and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who attended by videoconference.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said they agreed to activate four trust funds which will help pay to upgrade Ukraine's logistics, cyber warfare, command and control and medical services, and added a fifth to support wounded Ukrainian soldiers.

Despite Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels saying today that they had agreed a new truce in the eastern rebel stronghold of Lugansk and were discussing a similar truce in Donetsk province, the ministers also pushed Moscow to honour a wider peace deal agreed in September.
"Russia must use its influence over the separatists to ensure they stop their attacks and abide by the ceasefire," the statement said, referring to the earlier deal.
A NATO official said "implementation is key" to any new ceasefire.

EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini, attending the meeting, said that if confirmed, the new truce accords "would obviously be very good news."

The NATO ministers were meanwhile also discussing plans to set up an interim quick reaction force to help the Cold War-era alliance to deal with new challenges of hybrid warfare and political upheaval, such as Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
At a September summit NATO leaders agreed to launch a "spearhead" force of around 4,000 troops by 2016 -- but on today they were discussing plans for an even faster, smaller force to be operational by early 2015.
Norway's Stoltenberg, who took over from Denmark's Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO chief on October 1, said the ministers aimed to agree on how to "drive our alliance forward in a changing world," ready to "deal with any challenges from the east or from the south."

They also reviewed NATO efforts to reassure eastern members such as the ex-Soviet Baltic states and former Warsaw Pact member Poland by rotating aircraft, ships and troops through the region.
The question of NATO membership for Ukraine was strictly off limits, diplomatic sources said.