Nato’s top military commander General Philip Breedlove thinks the West should consider all options in the case of Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

The West should consider using all its tools to help Ukraine, including sending defensive weapons, Nato’s top military commander said yesterday.

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 US or any other nation’s power should necessarily be off the table,” US 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 in the case of Russia and 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 by both sides involved in the conflict.

“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.

Could it be destabilising, the answer is yes but also inaction could be destabilising

With regard to the missile shield which is to be set up by the US and Nato, he said this was intended to defend Europe from a potential missile threat from Iran.

However, Moscow is insisting that the system will undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent because it could also enable the West to shoot down Russian missiles.

Breedlove, who is also commander of US European Command, said a call by Islamic State, the Islamist militant group fighting in Iraq and Syria, for supporters to kill 100 US military service members whose addresses it posted online was “just one more of their sensational tools”.

“This caliphate, I think, is under great pressure and so they try to divert attention from what is happening on the battlefield by putting out one of these great splashes,” he said.