The EU response to Russia's actions related to the situation in Ukraine is the correct decision, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview published in Welt am Sonntag, TASS reported.
"I would have been incorrect to leave without a reaction that Russia had violated Ukraine's territory integrity and sovereignty, which it guaranteed under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994," she said.
"Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, our eastern neighbours, have signed association agreements with the EU on their own sovereign decisions. Russia is preparing problems for these countries," Merkel added.
Speaking about Moldova, she said the country "has been suffering for many years because of Transdniestria."
"We have undertaken big political efforts to help them out, but, in vain as yet," she said mentioning also Kiev's reaction to Crimea's joining the Russian Federation. "At the same time, we can see Russia has been undertaking economic and political attempts to make dependent from it several Balkan countries."
Should it be necessary, she said, military assistance would be offered to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"The question of was in the Baltic countries is not on the agenda. However, we should observe Article 5 of the NATO agreement, which reads the obligation to offer assistance to all partners in the alliance," she said. "This is why, for example, we are offering assistance in guarding the Baltic air space, organise new rapid reaction force and cooperate with Poland and Denmark."