Live Blog: Crisis In Ukraine (Archive)

BRUSSELS -- A senior NATO official says that defense ministers from the alliance’s 28 countries this week will discuss whether to station permanent forces in the bloc’s eastern-most states in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Ministers at the June 3-4 meeting in Brussels will reassess NATO’s 1997 deal with Russia in which the alliance said it would refrain from “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.”

Several former Soviet-bloc countries who have since joined NATO have expressed security concerns after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March.

“This is the key to everything that’s going on here at NATO,” the official told reporters in Brussels on June 2.

Any decision on such deployments would likely be made at a summit of NATO leaders set for September in Wales, the official said.

Moscow's Move

Russia, meanwhile, has called an emergency UN Security Council meeting to introduce a resolution calling for an immediate end to fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow's UN Mission said the draft resolution would also call for creating humanitarian corridors to allow Ukrainians to escape areas affected by the fighting.

At least two people were killed in what separatists controlling Ukraine's eastern city of Luhansk claimed was an air strike on their headquarters launched by Ukraine's military.

The military denied the report, suggesting separatists' mishandling of a heat-seeking weapon caused the blast, but Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Kiyv of committing "another crime" against its people.

On the outskirts of Luhansk, Ukrainian border guards were engaged in a continuing battle with separatists who attacked their local headquarters in the early hours of June 2.

Gas Deal?

The European Union Energy Commissioner says the heads of Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogas have reached a tentative deal in a row over gas supplies.

Guenther Oettinger made the announcement after three hours of talks in Brussels on June 2.

He said the two chief executives “have a shared proposal for a bulk deal: for the resolution of unpaid invoices through a redemption plan and for an acceptable price for both sides to be charged in future."

Oettinger added that gas supplies were guaranteed until a final round of negotiations that is to take place this week or next.

Earlier, Gazprom announced it has delayed the introduction of advance payment for gas supplies to Ukraine to June 9 after receiving a $786 million payment from Kyiv for part of its estimated $5.2 billion gas debt to Moscow.