June 9 filled NATO headquarters with a sure smell of scandal when Assistant Secretary General Anthony Craig told journalists that a joint Ukraine-NATO meeting of defense ministers would be held.
That same day, DINAU reports, Kyiv sent word that Ukraine was not prepared for this action, referring to Defense Minister Lieutenant General Oleksandr Kuzmuk’s ill health, being thus unable to attend the meeting in Brussels, while his second in command, Colonel General Ivan Bizhan was not fully briefed to fill in.
Ukrainian diplomats in Brussels say that all information concerning the commission’s meeting have been duly prepared and supplied to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, and that either of the generals could easily familiarize himself with several pages of regular format laser-printed text, doing so on the way to the airport or even when comfortably airborne.
Needless to say, the North Alliance can only take a dim view of such Ukrainian reluctance to cooperate, considering this as a demarche, DINAU was told by a ranking NATO official who, of course, wished to remain unidentified.






