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Kyiv Urges NATO To Prepare ‘Deterrence Package’ Against Moscow Amid Tensions Over Military Buildup

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Ukraine has urged NATO to boost military cooperation with Kyiv and prepare sanctions and other measures to deter Russia from attacking it as the Western military alliance’s foreign ministers meet for a second day in Latvia amid growing concern over a Russian military buildup near the Ukrainian border.

“We will call on the allies to join Ukraine in putting together a deterrence package,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters on December 1 as he arrived for talks with his NATO counterparts in the Latvian capital, Riga.

NATO should and boost military and defense cooperation with Kyiv, and prepare economic sanctions to be imposed on Russia if it “decides to chose the worst-case scenario,” he said.

On the first day of their meeting, the ministers of the 30-country defense bloc warned Russia it would pay a heavy price for any new military aggression against Ukraine, while Moscow cautioned the Western military alliance against crossing its “red lines.”

Ukraine — which aspires to become a member of NATO, a move strongly opposed by Moscow — says Russia has kept tens of thousands of troops and heavy equipment near their common border following massive war games in western Russia earlier this year, raising fears of a possible invasion.

Russia, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs separatists fighting against Kyiv in an ongoing conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people over the past seven years, has denied it is plotting an attack and blames Ukraine and its Western backers for fueling tensions.

Speaking to reporters in Riga on November 30, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that “there will be a high price to pay for Russia if they once again use force” against Ukraine, and noted that the West had already imposed economic, financial, and political sanctions against Moscow.

“We need to be prepared for the worst,” Stoltenberg said. “They’ve done it before.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “very concerned about the movements we’ve seen along Ukraine’s border,” and warned that any renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine would trigger “serious consequences.”

The NATO allies will “together send an unmistakable message to the Russian government: NATO’s support for Ukraine is unbroken and its independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty are not up for discussion,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that any suggestion that NATO was provoking Russia was “clearly false,” adding that “any action by Russia to undermine the freedom and democracy that our partners enjoy would be a strategic mistake.”

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would be forced to act if its “red lines” were crossed by NATO member states, saying Moscow would view the deployment of certain offensive missile capabilities on Ukrainian soil as a trigger.

The previous day, Kuleba said Russia had amassed 115,000 troops and heavy weapons near his country’s border, on the occupied territory of Crimea, and in parts of the two eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine occupied by Moscow-backed separatists.

The reported Russian military buildup follows a similar surge in the spring, when Moscow gathered around 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders but later announced a drawdown.

With reporting by Reuters