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NATO Chief Calls Russia’s Actions Grave Threat to Europe’s Security NATO Weighs Assistance for Ukraine to Dissuade Further Moves by Moscow
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Wednesday that Russia’s military intervention was the “gravest threat” to European security since the end of the Cold War. WASHINGTON — The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Wednesday that the alliance was considering providing assistance to Ukraine to help deter Russia from another military intervention there.
“This is a wake-up call, for the Euro-Atlantic community, for NATO and for all those committed to a Europe whole, free and at peace,” Mr. Rasmussen said in a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday afternoon. “We have intensive consultations with the Ukrainians right now,” Mr. Rasmussen said during an appearance at the Brookings Institution. “I agree that we should step up our assistance to Ukraine, and I am sure it will happen.”
Mr. Rasmussen conferred here Tuesday evening with Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He noted that Ukraine had requested the aid, and that decisions on what to provide would be made at a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers on April 1-2.
Mr. Rasmussen said that the Russian intervention was serious for three reasons: the size of it, the fact that it affected a nation of 45 million and because the crisis was right on NATO’s doorstep. Mr. Rasmussen did not say what help might be provided now that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has sent troops to Crimea and positioned other forces near eastern Ukraine. But other Western officials said that Ukraine was seeking communications gear, mine-clearing equipment, vehicles, ammunition, fuel and medical gear, and the sharing of intelligence.
“We had thought that such behavior had been confined to history, but it’s back and it’s dangerous because it violates international norms of accepted behavior,” he said. Adm. James G. Stavridis, who led NATO’s military command until his retirement last year, said in an interview that the assistance should be provided and that the alliance should also consider sending military advisers to Ukrainian command centers to coordinate the sharing of intelligence and the distribution of equipment and supplies. NATO should also help Ukraine deal with potential cyberwarfare attacks, he added.
Mr. Rasmussen said that the alliance had put the range of NATO cooperation with Russia under review and had suspended its plans to escort Russian ships that are ferrying chemical weapons stocks from Syria. The alliance has also canceled staff-level meetings between NATO and Russian officials, though it has kept the door open to political dialogue at senior levels. “The odds of reversing what has happened in Crimea are very low, so I think the focus needs to shift to ensuring there is no further encroachment into Ukrainian territory,” said Admiral Stavridis, now the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
NATO foreign ministers are to meet in early April, and further decisions will be taken then, he said. “This would not be not risk-free; on the other hand, for NATO to do nothing is the most dangerous course,” he added. “The odds of Putin moving further go down with NATO involvement at the level I have described.”
“Russia was among those who committed in 1994 to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said. “Russia pledged not to threaten or use force against Ukraine. By turning its back on that agreement, Russia has called into question its credibility and reliability as an international actor. And any steps to annex Crimea would be in clear violation of the United Nations Charter.” Mr. Rasmussen, who was in Washington to consult on the crisis in Ukraine, did not meet with President Obama. But he conferred Tuesday evening with Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser.
He called on Russia to stop all military activities that threatened Ukraine, commit itself to a political solution and engage in direct talks with the government of Ukraine. In his speech at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Rasmussen described the Russian military intervention in Crimea as the “gravest threat” to European security since the end of the Cold War. He said the annexation of Crimea was especially serious for three reasons: the size of the military intervention, the fact that it affected a nation of 45 million, and Ukraine’s location on NATO’s doorstep.
“This is a wake-up call, for the Euro-Atlantic community, for NATO and for all those committed to a Europe whole, free and at peace,” he said. “We had thought that such behavior had been confined to history, but it’s back, and it’s dangerous because it violates international norms of accepted behavior.”
Mr. Rasmussen said the alliance was reviewing the full range of its cooperation with Moscow and had suspended its plans to escort Russian ships that are ferrying chemicals for making poison gas from Syria. The alliance has also canceled staff-level meetings between NATO and Russian officials, though it has kept the door open to political talks.
NATO members have also taken a series of relatively modest military steps to reassure its East European members. The United States has sent six F-15 fighters to Lithuania to bolster NATO’s air policing mission in the Baltic states and has sent 12 F-16s to Poland, which borders Ukraine.
Two NATO surveillance planes are patrolling Polish and Romanian airspace. Britain also recently announced that it planned to send several Typhoon aircraft to join the Baltic mission.
Mr. Rasmussen said that he expected additional steps, but he did not say what they might be.
Some experts say the Western alliance should reconsider the assurance it provided Russia in 1997 that NATO would not deploy a substantial number of ground forces on the territory of its Central and East European members. That assurance was part of an agreement on cooperation between NATO and Russia.
“We ought to take another look at having a visible forward presence on the ground and in the air in Central and Eastern Europe,” said Ivo H. Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who recently served as the United States ambassador to NATO.
Others experts have also focused on that possibility.
“To build further confidence in NATO’s collective-security commitments to members in its eastern area, Washington should return to Europe a third brigade combat team,” William Courtney, the former American ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, and Job C. Henning, a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, wrote in The National Interest. “If requested by Poland, it ought to be based there.”
The Obama administration has not signaled what additional steps it is prepared to take, but noted that it would participate in a previously planned multinational military exercise in Ukraine this summer, called Rapid Trident. Mr. Hagel spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Ihor Tenyukh, on Wednesday. Carlos Pascual, the State Department’s special envoy for international energy affairs, left on Wednesday for a meeting in Kiev on how to lessen Ukraine’s energy dependence on Russia.