KYIV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked NATO on Tuesday to find a way for Ukraine to join the Western military alliance after days when Russia concentrated troops near the conflict-stricken Donbass region.
Zelenskiy’s comments drew an immediate rebuke from Moscow, which said that Kiev’s approach to NATO could further inflame the situation in Donbass, where violence has escalated in recent days.
The Pentagon, perhaps due to sensitivities, categorically declined a request to comment on Zelenskiy’s request at a news conference.
Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the Donbass since 2014, a conflict that Kiev says has killed 14,000 people. Kiev reported that two more soldiers died on Tuesday and, in a separate statement, Zelenskiy said 24 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the beginning of the year.
“NATO is the only way to end the war in Donbass,” Zelenskiy told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by telephone, according to a statement from the Zelenskiy office. A Member Action Plan that defines Ukraine’s path to entering the alliance “will be a real signal for Russia,” he said.
He also asked NATO members to strengthen their military presence in the Black Sea region.
Stoltenberg in a tweet expressed “serious concern about Russia’s military activities in Ukraine and around ceasefire violations”.
Ukraine has launched a diplomatic offensive to shore up support from Western countries and NATO in their stalemate with Russia over Donbass, sounding the alarm since late March about the increase in Russian troops. Russia says that troop movements are defensive and that NATO involvement would ignite the situation.
The stalemate also pushed Ukrainian sovereign bonds to the lowest level since November.
KREMLIN SAYS THAT RHETORIC CAN INFLAMMATE
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that those living in eastern Ukraine would not accept NATO membership and that the rhetoric could further destabilize the Donbass region.
“So far, we see no intention on the Ukrainian side to calm down in any way and move away from belligerent themes,” he said.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during a visit to India, said Russia is concerned about statements coming from Kiev and is in contact with European countries about them.
The Donbass conflict broke out in the months after Russian forces took the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine and Western countries say that Donbass separatists were armed, led, financed and helped by Russians, including active Russian troops. Moscow has denied interfering. Although a ceasefire interrupted the war on a large scale in 2015, sporadic deadly fighting never ceased.
Ukraine also said on Tuesday that it wants to move away from the ongoing peace talks in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, saying that Belarus is very much under the influence of Russia.
“We don’t know where (the conversations) could be relocated. This is the issue under discussion, ”Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, told Reuters.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Tom Balmforth and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels, Karin Strohecker in London, Phil Stewart in Washington Written by Matthias WilliamsEditing by Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis