NATO said Thursday it will soon supply the Ukrainian military with high-tech, secure communications equipment, a key tactical move roughly a week after the Trump administration pushed on the alliance to take more of a “leadership” role in confronting Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“We are also supporting Ukraine to improve its naval capabilities,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels during a visit Thursday by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
While NATO has stood with Washington in rhetorically condemning recent Russian provocations in Ukraine — which is not a member nation of the alliance — Mr. Stoltenberg’s pledge Thursday marked the first tangible European military response to Moscow’s attack last month on Ukrainian naval vessels.
The NATO chief praised the Poroshenko government’s “calm” and “restraint” following the Russian military’s Nov. 25 seizure of three Ukrainian vessels and their crew members in the Kerch Strait. The narrow but strategic waterway connects the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea and separates Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, from the Russian mainland.
As of Thursday, Russian officials continued to reject calls by U.S. and European leaders to release the Ukrainian crew members and return the seized vessels.
The announcement of secure NATO communications equipment for Ukraine, meanwhile, followed a behind-the-scenes push by the Trump administration to convince the alliance to take a more prominent public role in responding to Russia’s latest provocation.
The push came on during a visit to Brussels last week by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A senior State Department official traveling with Mr. Pompeo told reporters on condition of anonymity that U.S. officials were “calling on European allies to show leadership in tackling a problem in Europe’s own backyard.”
The U.S. has previously responded to Russian aggression in Ukraine — a former Soviet republic that Moscow fears will become a NATO member state — by providing U.S. anti-tank javelin missiles to the Ukrainian military.
“The administration has been forceful and clear up to and including providing a lot of lethal aid to Ukrainians,” the official traveling with Mr. Pompeo said last week. “We want to see European allies take greater responsibility for a security problem that’s just a few hundred miles from Germany’s border and [we] will be right there with them every step of the way.”
There was no immediate comment from the administration to Mr. Stoltenberg’s announcement Thursday.
The NATO chief did not provide details on the type of secure communications equipment the alliance will be providing to Ukrainian forces, although he said delivery would occur by the end of this year and is part of a previous, roughly $40 million, pledge by NATO member states to support Ukraine.
“In response to Russia’s aggressive actions, NATO has stepped up its presence in the Black Sea region over the past few yeas, and we will continue to assess our posture there,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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