THE outgoing General Secretary of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has stressed that the military alliance is seeking a political and diplomatic solution to the crisis in Ukraine. "Nobody wants war."

Mr Rasmussen, who steps down at the end of this month to be replaced by Jens Stoltenberg, made his comments at a press conference at the NATO Summit in Newport alongside the Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko.

Six months ago, President Poroshenko was the head of a confectionary company. Now he is the leader of a country at war who, on Thursday, was pleading for assistance at the top table of the world's largest military alliance.

The NATO leaders responded with a "comprehensive and tailored package" of measures, focusing on cyber defence, logistics, and command and control communications, as well as rehabilitation for troops injured in the conflict. NATO will also provide advice on defence reforms, as well as financial support of 15 million Euros.

The NATO support package for Ukraine is in addition to bilateral support provided by individual NATO alliance members. President Poroshenko confirmed that this included the promise of arms from some countries, but he did not go into detail.

Mr Rasmussen said: "Ukraine has been an important and distinctive NATO partner for many years. We highly value Ukraine's contribution to our operations and the NATO response force. Ukraine has stood by NATO. Now, in these difficult times, NATO stands with Ukraine.

"We stand united in our support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders. We strongly condemn Russia's repeated violations of international law. Russia must stop its aggressive actions against Ukraine, withdraw its thousands of troops from Ukraine and the border regions, and stop supporting the separatists in Ukraine."

He said that NATO leaders also called on Russia to "reverse its illegal and illegitimate self-declared annexation of Crimea which we do not and will not recognise."

But he stressed that: "I don't think anybody wants war or armed conflict to solve this issue. We do believe that the best way forward would be to find a political solution and to facilitate such political solutions.

"I firmly believe that the international community must respond determinedly if Russia were to intervene further in Ukraine through deeper, proper, tougher economic sanctions that would definitely hurt the Russian economy and isolate Russia further."

President Poroshenko described the announced package of support as a "landmark event", saying: "This partnership has always been [an] essential factor for the international and regional security and stability. The security and stability in the region has been brutally undermined by Russian aggression."

He went on: "Ukraine is fighting for peace. Ukraine was not an initiator of war. Ukraine is the object of aggression and we are trying to do our best to alleviate, to stop, the aggression.

"Ukraine is paying the highest price every single day in the lives of our soldiers and innocent civilians; and me, as the President of Ukraine, will do my best to stop the war."

On Friday, Mr Poroshenko will meet the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in the Belarus capital Minsk for peace talks. He said he had "careful optimism" that the talks will result in an immediate ceasefire, because of comments coming from Moscow.

But Mr Rasmussen warned: "We have seen similar statements before, and they have turned out to be just smokescreens."

In Ukraine, Patriarch Filaret of the independent Ukraine Orthodox Church (Kiev) this week consecrated a memorial cross at the National Pedagogical University to commemorate the "Heavenly Hundred" - the 104 people, most of them young, who were killed during protests in Maiden Square, Kiev, earlier this year.

"In God we have victory and any evil will disappear because it is temporary", the University Rector, Victor Andruschenko, said. "We will pass this difficult historical period, but it will pass with dignity and calm. And our teachers, the future university graduates, bear these values in society, and will bring up the children to become great patriots of our country."