KIEV, August 27 (RIA Novosti) – Kiev is expecting that the West will make crucial decisions at a NATO summit in Wales, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Wednesday.
“President of Ukraine will attend the NATO summit. NATO is our partner. We expect practical assistance and monumental decisions from our Western partners at the summit, which will take place September 4. We need help,” Yatsenyuk said.
The summit also included meetings of the NATO-Ukraine and NATO-Georgia commissions.
Earlier, NATO’s Moscow office spokesperson Robert Pshel claimed the block was going to support Kiev.
Ukraine became the first former-Soviet nation to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1994. The program had been intensifying its efforts until 2010, when President Viktor Yanukovych removed the issue of joining NATO from the country’s political agenda. The new authorities brought to power after the February 2014 events on Kiev’s Independence Square have increased cooperation with NATO, although there has been no explicit claim that Ukraine will join the group.
Following Crimea’s reunification with Russia in March 2014, NATO has been boosting its military presence close to Russia’s border. In particular, the block dispatched a number of warships to the Black Sea and reinforced air patrolling missions in the airspace of the Baltic nations. Additionally, in April Washington sent four airborne units to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to support its NATO allies amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly expressed concern over the increasing NATO military presence.
