Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Ukraine to withdraw forces from its easternmost regions as the International Monetary Fund warned that extra financing may be needed if control of the industrial heartland is lost. In a telephone call yesterday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin also demanded an end to violence gripping cities in southeastern Ukraine, according to a Kremlin statement. The Ukrainian conflict will top the agenda when Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama meet today in Washington, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney. “We expect to continue a path that sees an international coalition escalating the costs that Russia will have to endure” if it “continues to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine and southern Ukraine, or even goes further and uses its forces to cross the border,” Carney told reporters yesterday. Ukraine no longer controls the eastern city of Donetsk, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said on […]