UPDATE 1-Ukraine presses NATO chief for defensive weapons


* Ukraine says it is a bulwark against Russian aggression

* NATO chief sees threat to European security but offers no
arms

* Stoltenberg says Russia needs to abide by Minsk deal

(Recasts with Ukraine’s calls for weapons)

By Robin Emmott

KYIV, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Ukraine pressed NATO on Tuesday
for Western weaponry to help defend itself against pro-Russian
separatists but the head of the alliance resisted for fear of
threatening a fragile ceasefire with Russian-backed rebels.

In Kyiv’s imposing Soviet-era government buildings,
Ukraine’s political leadership told NATO Secretary-General Jens
Stoltenberg that their armed forces were no match for Russia,
and needed help.

“Our heroes, our warriors belong to an army that was
neglected for decades…they face aggression and need defensive
weaponry,” the speaker of the parliament, Volodymyr Groysman,
told Stoltenberg making his first visit to Ukraine as head of
NATO, 18 months after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, sitting alongside
Stoltenberg at a national security council meeting, was equally
blunt in depicting a threat from Russia which, however, denies
it has provided weapons to the rebels in the east.

“Defence capabilities are essential to us in the face of a
nuclear country, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on
modernising its army,” Yatseniuk said.

Diplomats said the issue of weaponry was raised at the
security council, but the tone was less strident than in public.
Initially, defensive equipment, for the Ukrainians, could
include more communication equipment, they said.

Hours earlier, Stoltenberg had signed agreements to help
modernise the Ukrainian armed forces.

But Stoltenberg said that was as far as NATO would go,
telling Reuters in an interview that “NATO does not provide or
supply weapons.”

“The main focus now is the implementation of the Minsk
agreement,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Monday was the first
day since the peace deal was signed in February in which no
violations of the ceasefire had been registered.

EUROPE’S OUTPOST

The ebb in violence in Ukraine’s east, where the West say
Russia is supporting and arming separatists and has positioned
its own heavy weapons, was an opportunity for new momentum for
diplomacy, Stoltenberg said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, while accepting that
non-NATO Ukraine could not expect direct military aid, portrayed
his country as a bulwark against Russian aggression that could
one day threaten other parts of the continent.

“De jure we are not allies, but de facto we are much more
than partners. Ukraine is the most eastern outpost of the
Euro-Atlantic area,” Poroshenko said.

Stoltenberg sees Ukraine as the most complex of Europe’s
many crises and backs the 11-step Minsk peace deal signed in
February that set an end-year deadline for implementation.

He sees the alliance’s role mainly limited to helping
rebuild the Ukrainian army after years of mismanagement that was
reflected in defeats by the pro-Russian rebels.

Former president Viktor Yanukovich dropped a bid to join
NATO in 2010 to please Moscow. When he moved last year to
decline an EU partnership deal and draw closer to Moscow, he was
toppled by protests dubbed by Russia a Western-backed coup.

The current pro-Western leadership under Poroshenko now
sees NATO membership as the only way to protect its territory.
NATO, however, wants to avoid provoking Moscow.

Russia opposes any potential expansion of NATO to former
communist areas of eastern and southeastern Europe, part of a
battle for influence that lies at the heart of the conflict in
Ukraine.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Additional reporting by Pavel
Polityuk and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Richard Balmforth
and Ralph Boulton)