A Ukrainian official at NATO said on September 15 that the country would soon request more new weapons from the West.

According to Reuters, this demand comes as Kyiv and the eastern opposition forces are seriously implementing the Minsk 2 agreement. This raises concerns that after a period of calm, the situation will become even more tense if Kyiv's demand is accepted.

Ukrainian soldiers are using Western-supplied weapons during intense fighting in Donetsk in August. (Photo: Reuters)

Earlier, on September 14, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko emphasized his desire to receive "defensive weapons" from the West to support the conflict with opposition forces in eastern Ukraine.

In a related development, former CIA Director David Petraeus has called on Western countries to supply Ukraine with the most advanced weapons, including the Javelin anti-tank missile system, to counter forces in eastern Ukraine. Petraeus made this request at the "Yalta European Strategy Forum" held in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the year, the US has been training the Ukrainian regular army, despite warnings that such a plan would exacerbate the crisis. On the Ukrainian side, officials explain that the ceasefire period is precisely when their army needs more training to increase its combat readiness and acquire new weapons, as there is a high risk of the fighting intensifying after the ceasefire.

Reuters quoted Yehor Bozhok, Ukraine's ambassador to NATO, as saying: "If heavy weapons are withdrawn to the eastern border in accordance with the Minsk agreement, everything will continue to go well. But once tensions escalate, we will have to request more sophisticated self-defense weapons from our Western partners."

Nearly 8,000 people have been killed and more than 17,000 others injured in the conflict in eastern Ukraine since mid-April 2014.

According to VOV