West should consider all tools, including arms, for Ukraine: NATO general

The West should consider using all its tools to help Ukraine, including sending defensive weapons, NATO's top military commander said on March 22.
   
Officials in Washington have been discussing whether to send weapons to Ukraine's military to help them fight pro-Russian separatists who NATO says are armed and supported by Moscow.
   
"I do not think that any tool of U.S. or any other nation's power should necessarily be off the table," U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove told a Brussels conference when asked if he was in favour of sending defensive weapons to Ukraine.
   
The West imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea last year, but fighting has continued.
   
Without naming Russia, Breedlove said diplomatic, information, military and economic tactics were all being used against Ukraine.
   
"And so we, I think, in the West should consider all of our tools in reply. Could it be destabilising? The answer is yes. Also, inaction could be destabilising," Breedlove said.
   
He said NATO intelligence pointed to "disturbing" military developments in eastern Ukraine and voiced concern about whether a ceasefire deal reached in Minsk last month was being complied with.
   
"We continue to see disturbing elements of air defence, command and control, resupply, equipment coming across a completely porous border," he said at the Brussels Forum, organised by the German Marshall Fund thinktank.
   
Asked about reports that Russia's ambassador to Denmark had warned that Danish warships could become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if Denmark contributed to a NATO missile shield in Europe, Breedlove said this was the ...