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NATO leaders approve rapid response force to counter Russia

Even while Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels agreed on a ceasefire after months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders yesterday approved plans to create a rapid response force aimed at countering Russian aggression.

A woman walking among tents at a refugee camp in Donetsk, Russia, on the border with Ukraine. Photo: The New York Times

A woman walking among tents at a refugee camp in Donetsk, Russia, on the border with Ukraine. Photo: The New York Times

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Even while Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels agreed on a ceasefire after months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders yesterday approved plans to create a rapid response force aimed at countering Russian aggression.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said a command headquarters would be set up in Eastern Europe, with supplies and equipment to be stockpiled there, enabling the “spearhead” force to mobilise and deploy quickly.

“It sends a clear message to any potential aggressor: Should you even think of attacking one ally, you will be facing the whole alliance,” Mr Rasmussen declared as a two-day NATO summit in southern Wales drew to a close.

NATO air patrol flights over the Baltic and other air, land and naval measures already in place will be extended indefinitely, Mr Rasmussen said, as part of a readiness package that also calls for upgraded intelligence-sharing and more short-term military exercises.

The campaign on Ukraine’s borders by Russia — which is not a NATO member — had rung alarm bells in Eastern European countries that were dominions of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and which turned west afterwards, joining NATO and the European Union.

“We must reassure our Eastern European members,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said. “We must be able to act more swiftly.”

NATO’s announcement yesterday coincided with news of a ceasefire between Kiev and the Russia-backed rebels after peace talks involving Ukraine, Russia, pro-Russian rebels and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

The strength of the truce, effective from 11pm yesterday, was immediately called into question by continued fighting around Mariupol, a strategic city between Russia to the east and the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula to the west.

The seizure of Mariupol would give the rebels a strong foothold on the Sea of Azov and raise the threat that they carve out a land corridor between Russia and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March. If that happens, Ukraine would lose another huge chunk of its coast and access to the rich hydrocarbon resources the Sea of Azov is believed to hold. Ukraine had already lost about half its coastline, several major ports and untold billions in Black Sea mineral rights with Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Since the middle of April, Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting government troops in eastern Ukraine in a conflict the United Nations estimated has killed nearly 2,600 people. Agencies

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