The war in eastern Ukraine is the focus of the NATO summit in Wales. The Western military alliance wants to help Kyiv without becoming directly involved in the conflict - dampening expectations in Ukraine, reports GHN based on dw.de
The alphabetical seating arrangement will ensure that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has strong neighbors at his side. At the meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission on the first day of the NATO summit on Thursday in Newport, Wales, the Ukrainian president will have his US counterpart Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron nearby.
Twenty years ago, the United States and Britain gave written security guarantees to the government in Kyiv. Ukraine had inherited the world's third-largest nuclear weapons arsenal from the Soviet Union - and gave it up. Russia also signed the Budapest Memorandum on security guarantees for Ukraine in 1994, but no longer sees itself bound by it today.
Whether the Russian annexation of Crimea or the war against separatists in the east of the country, Ukraine sees itself increasingly involved in an undeclared war with Russia. As a result, the Ukrainian government is seeking protection from Western nations.