(18 Feb 2015) NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia on Wednesday to stop all its support for separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine, and to use all its influence on the separatists to make them respect the ceasefire agreement reached last week.
Stoltenberg was addressing journalists in Riga where he was attending an informal meeting of EU defence ministers.
As the meeting took place the news came through that Debaltseve, a key railroad junction between the separatist east's two main cities, Donetsk and Luhansk, had been taken by separatist forces.
The latest cessation of hostilities was agreed after a marathon session of diplomacy last week that brought together the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France for talks in the capital of Belarus, Minsk.
But the agreement did not resolve the issue of Debaltseve, with both sides in the conflict claiming the town to be on their side of the ceasefire line.
Stoltenberg noted on Wednesday that the ceasefire had not been respected and that separatists had been making advances around Debaltseve, and using "advanced weapons" to attack Ukrainian forces in the town.
But despite signs that the ceasefire is not being respected, he described it, along with the Minsk agreement as "the most important tool we have to achieve a negotiated peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine."
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, also in Latvia, described the development in Debaltseve as "clearly a violation of the ceasefire, of the agreements that were signed".
She stressed that the EU and the "whole international community" supported a full implementation of the Minsk agreement including the ceasefire and the withdrawal of weapons from the region.
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