NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg will next week make his first visit to Ukraine, the alliance said today, as efforts to solve the conflict between pro-Russian rebels and government forces continue.

"NATO Secretary General, Mr Jens Stoltenberg, will travel to Lviv and Kiev on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September 2015," a statement said, indicating he would hold talks with President Petro Poroshenko.

Ukraine, where around 7,000 people have been killed in fighting since April 2014, is a key partner but not a member of the 28-nation military alliance.

He will also hold talks with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the parliamentary speaker, and will attend a meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, it said.

NATO has responded sharply to the Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea by increasing its readiness posture and rotating troops and equipment through its ex-communist eastern members to ease their fears that Moscow wants to reassert its hold over them.

Russia denies any direct role in a conflict which has plunged East-West relations into a deep freeze reminiscent of the Cold War.