Category: Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine — President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine reached an agreement with Russia on Wednesday for a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, the presidential office said in a brief announcement on its website. The Ukrainian announcement said the agreement had come during a telephone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “The conversation resulted in an agreement on a lasting cease-fire in Donbass,” or eastern Ukraine, said the announcement, which consisted of three sentences. The two presidents agreed on the steps needed to establish peace, it said. No other details were given. But Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, said Mr. Putin had not negotiated a cease-fire with Mr. Poroshenko because Russia was not a party to the conflict in Ukraine’s southeast. “Putin and Poroshenko did indeed discuss steps which could facilitate a cease-fire between the militias and the Ukrainian military,” Mr. Peskov was quoted as saying […]

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WASHINGTON — American and European officials are struggling to devise a response as Russia bears down on Ukraine, searching for new measures that will have more impact than the economic sanctions imposed so far, without risking major damage to their own industries or a military escalation that could spiral out of control. The officials are meeting this week to assemble a new package of sanctions targeting Russia’s banking, energy and defense sectors, but expressed skepticism that the measures would force Moscow to reverse course. President Obama faced rising calls from advisers and from Congress to move beyond economic actions to provide arms and more intelligence to Ukraine’s beleaguered military. The frustration at the inability to deter Moscow follows a shift on the battlefield, where Russian troops have turned the tide in favor of Ukrainian separatists. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who last week suggested “statehood” for parts of […]

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Ukraine warned of an escalating conflict in its easternmost regions as a rebel leader said talks this week may include negotiations for a truce. The country’s military will take on Russia’s “full-scale invasion,” Defense Minister Valeriy Geletey said on Facebook today, a shift away from the government’s earlier communication that focused on an offensive against insurgents. Ukraine “must urgently build up defenses against Russia,” which is seeking “to advance to other areas in Ukraine,” Geletey said. Ukraine and its allies in the U.S. and Europe are accusing Russia of dispatching troops and backing militias to open a new front in the conflict that the United Nations estimates has claimed 2,600 lives. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the unrest. Talks today between representatives from Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the separatists will continue Sept. 5. “We can truly imagine some very dark […]

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Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested “statehood” for battle-torn southeastern Ukraine as further European Union sanctions loom. “We must immediately commence substantive talks and not only on technical issues, but also on the political organization of society and the statehood status of southeast Ukraine in order to serve the interests of people living there,” Putin said in a television interview broadast yesterday. Ukrainian troops killed about 100 pro-Russian rebels in the last 24 hours, Defense Ministry spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said in a video statement on Facebook today. Government troops are fighting for control of Luhansk airport and they were shelled three times from the Russian side of the border, according to the statement. Members of a so-called contact group that may include representatives from Russia, Ukraine, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were expected to meet in the Belarus capital Minsk today in the latest […]

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Temperatures in Europe are forecast to be warmer than average this month after the coolest August in eight years, when Hurricane Bertha brought cold air. Five of seven meteorologists surveyed by Bloomberg predict above-normal temperatures for most of Europe. High pressure is forecast to build in the region’s west from early September, leading to warmer conditions, MetraWeather says. “September is always a tricky month as we transition from summer to fall, with a lot of pattern variability possible,” Mike Thomas, a meteorologist at Bethesda, Maryland-based Commodity Weather Group LLC, said by e-mail Aug. 28. “We generally favor a warm September.” September is the last month before the official start of the winter heating season, when demand for power and natural gas usually rises. Electricity consumption in Europe is set to decline 2.9 percent in 2014 because last winter was the region’s mildest in seven years and economies are in […]

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday suggested Moscow would stick to a tough approach at talks. Reuters MOSCOW—Russia signaled it would take a hard line during Ukraine talks Monday, calling on Kiev to agree to an immediate and unconditional cease-fire as President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine’s leaders of escalating the violence by refusing to negotiate in good faith. In Kiev, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of undertaking "undisguised aggression" that has "fundamentally changed the situation in the zone of military action" in the east, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting pro-Russia separatists for five months. Kiev, backed by Western leaders, has accused Moscow of sending more than 1,000 troops into its territory in the last few weeks to support the separatists, a charge Moscow denies even as Ukraine has suffered a dramatic reversal on the battlefield in recent days. The rebel representative to Monday’s talks with Russia […]

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DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine—With its forces falling back before onslaughts in eastern Ukraine, Kiev agreed to the release of Russian paratroopers captured inside its borders last week in return for 63 Ukrainians who had crossed into Russian territory to flee fighting. The exchanges appeared to be a modest sign of a willingness to talk on the eve of cease-fire talks in Minsk, Belarus, on Monday that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said could be decisive. Kiev has taken a hard line in previous talks as it sought to regain territory taken by Moscow-backed rebels. But after Russian troops openly intervened, reversing Kiev’s gains and leaving hundreds of its soldiers surrounded, Mr. Poroshenko may be preparing to make concessions. Moscow appeared to be hardening its demands and to be ready to press Kiev to accept outright secession of its two eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk. In remarks broadcast on Russia’s state television, […]

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The EU is to decide on further energy and financial sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis within a week, German chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday. "If nothing changes [in Ukraine] then these sanctions will be adopted," she told reporters after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. The move comes after reports of increased Russian military involvement in the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine. Merkel said the European Commission already has a list of further possible measures ready for EU governments to consider and decide on "within a week." These further measures are in the areas where the EU has already adopted sanctions, "so financial sanctions are possible, but also other areas in the energy sector for example," she said. In late July the EU targeted Russia’s oil sector with economic sanctions banning any new contracts with Russia that […]

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KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday that Russian forces had entered his country and the military conflict was worsening after Russian-backed separatists swept into a key town in the east. Poroshenko said he was cancelling a visit to Turkey and conferring with defense chiefs because of the "rapidly deteriorating situation" in the eastern Donetsk region, "as Russian troops have actually been brought into Ukraine". A NATO military officer said: "We assess well over 1,000 Russian troops are now operating inside Ukraine… They are supporting separatists (and) fighting with them." Russia says it has no involvement in the conflict between pro-Moscow rebels and the Ukrainian military, in which more than 2,200 people have been killed since April. It denies sending in weapons or troops, despite the capture of 11 soldiers inside Ukraine this week who Moscow said had probably crossed the border by accident. Russia’s envoy […]

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Russian forces had entered Ukraine and seized the coastal town of Novoazovsk, putting a diplomatic response to the crisis in doubt. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of invading the country, dashing hopes of progress toward a diplomatic resolution and challenging the West to respond. A senior official of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said that more than 1,000 Russian troops were fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, by far the largest such force ever reported by the Western alliance. But he stopped short of calling it an invasion, saying it represented an "incursion" apparently aimed at preventing Kiev’s forces from defeating pro-Russian rebels, rather than a broader assault on Ukraine. Kiev said Russian forces have seized the coastal town of Novoazovsk and several villages near the border with Russia. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko called an emergency meeting with his […]

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