We have seen signs of the withdrawal of Russian troops, but there are still tens of thousands of them along the Ukrainian borders, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a doorstep statement to the press in Brussels on Tuesday, June 3, in advance of the meeting of the Defence Ministers of member states. The two-day meeting of NATO Defence Ministers, which started on Tuesday in Brussels, is focusing on the situation in Ukraine.

We have seen signs of the withdrawal of Russian troops, but there are still tens of thousands of them along the Ukrainian borders, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a doorstep statement to the press in Brussels on Tuesday, June 3, in advance of the meeting of the Defence Ministers of member states. The two-day meeting of NATO Defence Ministers, which started on Tuesday in Brussels, is focusing on the situation in Ukraine.

The two-day meeting of NATO Defence Ministers, which has just started in Brussels, is the last Defence Ministerial before the Wales Summit. Hungary is represented at the meeting by Minister of Defence Csaba Hende.

On the first day of the two-day event, the 28 ministers first hold a working meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine, then they meet their Ukrainian counterpart to discuss the same topic. The main topics of the working dinner in the evening will also be the Ukrainian crisis and Russia’s illegal military aggression against Ukraine.

Rasmussen has called on Moscow to “fully withdraw its armed forces from Ukraine’s border” and stop supporting armed gangs that “occupy government buildings” in Eastern Ukraine and “take OSCE observers hostage”. He said that “the right way forward is a political and diplomatic solution to the crisis”, adding that since the massive Russian troop presence is not justified at all,  “a first, very important step… would be for Russia to de-escalate the situation, first and foremost by a full withdrawal of Russian troops...” This was the first time that Rasmussen had referred to pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine as “armed gangs”.  He said that in his opinion, if Moscow stopped supporting them, that would be a step in the right direction.

The NATO Secretary General stated that “the illegal annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation is illegal”, adding that NATO does not recognize it, and still considers Crimea a part of Ukraine.

Answering a question from the press, Mr. Rasmussen said he appreciates the announcement from the White House that the Obama administration in Washington “is going to ask Congress for a billion dollars to increase US military rotations in Europe”, in the eastern member states of NATO, as a “reassurance measure” for the governments involved. At the same time, he noted that NATO is still “considering more long-term measures” to “update its defence plans” and develop new ones in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. As he said,  NATO has already taken immediate measures, but decisions about the revision of a long-term readiness action plan and about “enhanced exercises” and “appropriate deployments” of forces are expected to be made only at the Wales NATO Summit in September.

(MTI)