NATO to beef up presence in eastern Europe

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen addresses the media as he arrives for a Foreign Affairs council meeting of EU Defense Ministers at the EU Headquarters in Luxembourg, 15 April: photo - EPA/NICOLAS BOUVY

"You will see deployments at sea, in the air, on land to take place immediately, that means within days," the NATO Secretary-General told a news conference after a meeting with the alliance's ambassadors on Wednesday.

NATO has two members of former-Soviet states - Estonia and Latvia - with Russian minorities and Poland shares a border with both Ukraine and the Kaliningrad district of Russia.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO fighter aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region, allied ships will be deployed to the Baltic, the eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere, and allied military staff will be sent out to improve NATO's preparedness for training and exercises, Reuters reports.

Poland's foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has called for NATO to station "two full brigades" or 10,000 troops in Poland.

Sikorski tweeted on Wednesday: "May all our dreams come true: NATO to deploy ground air and sea forces in a few days to strengthen allies".

But NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said no decision had been taken on stationing bases in the Baltics though NATO was looking into more medium and long-term measures to strengthen defences.

Pro-Russian armed men ride on a tank in Slaviansk, Ukraine, 16 April 2014. About six unknown armored vehicles with Russian flag above arrived to the eastern Ukrainian town of Slaviansk. The information about Ukrainian armored vehicles, which were seized by pro-Russian protesters in Kramatorsk and after arrived in Slaviansk was not confirmed. Ukrainian armored vehicles were still blocked in Kramatorsk at this time: photo - EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

Meanwhile, tension in the east of Ukraine increased on Wednesday when the Ukrainian government said that pro-Russia separatists had seized six armoured personnel carriers from the Ukrainian armed forces, with the help of Russian agents, in the city of Kramatorsk.

"A column was blocked by a crowd of local people in Kramatorsk with members of a Russian diversionary-terrorist group among them. As a result of the blocking, extremists seized the equipment," the statement by Ukraine's defence ministry said. (pg)