KIEV, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey has reported that NATO countries started supplying weapons to Ukraine.
"I also spoke [at the NATO summit in September] in private with the defense ministers of the leading countries of the world, those that can help us, and they heard us, we have the supply of arms underway," Heletey said in an interview with Ukrainian Fifth channel.
"This process has begun, and I feel that this is exactly the way we need to follow," the minister said.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he was able to negotiate with a number of NATO countries on direct deliveries of modern weapons to Ukraine. According to the presidential adviser Yuri Lutsenko, an agreement was reached at the NATO summit in Wales on the supply of weapons from the United States, France, Poland, Norway and Italy. All these countries later denied this statement, but the Ukrainian president insisted that a number of NATO countries had agreed on direct supplies of such weapons.
NATO has repeatedly said that the organization itself cannot supply weapons and other military equipment to Ukraine. However, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that NATO would not interfere in the decisions of individual member states regarding this kind of decision.
