Category: Ukraine

The US has warned Russia to tone down its aggressive rhetoric on Ukraine, or face further sanctions. US Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart over the phone that Moscow must call for pro-Russian gunmen to lay down their weapons. Kiev and the West say Moscow commands the gunmen – claims denied by Russia. The Ukrainian authorities have re-launched an anti-terror operation to take back several towns in the east overrun by pro-Russian militants. Acting President Olexander Turchynov said he had ordered the operation to restart after two men – including local politician Vladimir Rybak – were found dead after being "brutally tortured". "The terrorists who effectively took the whole Donetsk region hostage have now gone too far," Mr Turchynov said. Kiev’s military operation to push gunmen out of public buildings began on 16 April but was suspended over the Easter period. In other developments: Some 150 […]

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De-escalation agreed to in Geneva has not materialized in eastern parts of the country, which faces a separatist crisis A deadly shootout in eastern Ukraine on Sunday is proof the country’s interim leaders are “crudely violating” a deal struck in Geneva last week , Russia’s foreign minister said Monday — the latest volley in a war of rhetoric over Ukraine’s separatist crisis, which has continued despite the tentative deal. The Geneva agreement, which called for all armed groups to abandon their occupation of government buildings and public spaces — including pro-Russian separatists in the east and pro-Western demonstrators in Kyiv’s central square — has largely been ignored. Sunday’s attack, which killed at least two and which Russian separatists have blamed on armed far-right nationalists, also broke a truce that was supposed to be honored over the Easter weekend. “The Geneva accord is not only not being fulfilled, but steps […]

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An international agreement to avert wider conflict in Ukraine was faltering on Monday, with pro-Moscow separatist gunmen showing no sign of surrendering government buildings they have seized. U.S. and European officials say they will hold Moscow responsible and impose new economic sanctions if the separatists do not clear out of government buildings they have occupied across swathes of eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks. Washington, which signed last week’s accord in Geneva along with Moscow, Kiev and the European Union, said it would decide "in days" on additional sanctions if Russia does not take steps to implement the agreement. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Monday to help carry out the deal, including by "publicly calling on separatists to vacate illegal buildings and checkpoints", spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "If they don’t take steps in the coming days, […]

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SLAVIANSK/YENAKIEVO, Ukraine (Reuters) – At least three people were killed in a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict. The incident triggered a war of words between Moscow and Ukraine’s Western-backed government, with each questioning the other’s compliance with the agreement, brokered last week in Geneva, to end a crisis that has made Russia’s ties with the West more fraught than at any time since the Cold War. The separatists said armed men from Ukraine’s Right Sector nationalist group had attacked them. The Right Sector denied any role, saying Russian special forces were behind the clash. Failure of the Geneva agreement could bring more bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, but may also prompt the United States to impose tougher sanctions on the Kremlin – with far-reaching consequences for […]

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KIEV, Ukraine — An American-backed deal to settle the crisis in eastern Ukraine fell flat on Friday as pro-Russian militants vowed to stay in occupied government buildings, dashing hopes of a swift end to an insurgency that the authorities in Kiev portray as a Kremlin-orchestrated effort to put Ukraine’s industrial heartland under Russian control. But the agreement, reached in Geneva on Thursday by diplomats from the European Union, Russia, Ukraine and the United States, appeared to arrest, at least temporarily, the momentum of separatist unrest in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east. Armed pro-Russian militants, who have seized buildings in at least 10 towns and cities since Feb. 6, paused their efforts to purge all central government authority from the populous Donetsk region. It was clear all along that for the pact to have a chance of success, the Kremlin would have to pressure the militants to leave the buildings they had […]

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Pro-Russia activists refused to retreat from occupied public buildings in eastern Ukraine on Friday despite an unexpected diplomatic breakthrough on Thursday night that laid out steps to disarm the protesters and ease tensions in the country. After seven hours of negotiations, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and John Kerry and Andriy Deshchytsia, his US and Ukrainian counterparts, said a statement had been agreed calling for the disbanding of armed groups, the vacation of occupied streets and buildings, and an amnesty for people detained during the unrest. In addition, Ukraine will embark on a process of constitutional reform designed to foster regional autonomy, local self-government and the protection of minority rights, a process which both Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov stressed must be “inclusive, transparent, and accountable”. But anti-Kiev protesters were determined to stand their ground on Friday, reinforcing doubts already emerging over the ability to implement the […]

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The high-level talks on Ukraine that are set to begin here on Thursday have emerged as a pivotal test of Russia ’s intentions in the region before the United States and European nations decide whether to impose additional economic sanctions on Moscow, American officials said on Wednesday.  “The idea here is that they would stop aiding and abetting and supporting these separatists and that they would pull their troops back from the border,” said a senior State Department official, referring to Western charges that Russia is behind the separatist protests in eastern Ukraine.  “If Russia does not take this opportunity to de-escalate, the costs are going to go up,” the official said. Secretary of State John Kerry will participate in the four-way meeting, which is to be held in a luxury hotel here, along with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov; Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, Andrii […]

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The Facebook post on Tuesday morning by Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia was bleak and full of dread. “Blood has been spilled in Ukraine again,” wrote Mr. Medvedev, once favored in the West for playing good cop to the hard-boiled president, Vladimir V. Putin. “The threat of civil war looms.” He pleaded with Ukrainians to decide their own future “without usurpers, nationalists and bandits, without tanks or armored vehicles — and without secret visits by the C.I.A. director.” And so began another day of bluster and hyperbole, of the misinformation, exaggerations, conspiracy theories, overheated rhetoric and, occasionally, outright lies about the political crisis in Ukraine that have emanated from the highest echelons of the Kremlin and reverberated on state-controlled Russian television, hour after hour, day after […]

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The U.S. stepped up efforts to dissuade Russia from intervening in Ukraine’s increasingly unstable east, with President telling President Monday that a diplomatic solution to the crisis is still possible even as he warned against further escalation. Russia requested the call, the first between the presidents since March 28, after Mr. Putin annexed Crimea. The White House also confirmed that Central Intelligence Agency Director was in Kiev over the weekend, at the same time that pro-Russian . The moves come ahead of a high-stakes meeting this week between U.S. Secretary of State and officials from Russia, Ukraine and the European Union, as well as a visit to Kiev next week by Vice President . On Tuesday, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will issue recommendations on Western military support for Ukraine. The general has privately advocated increased strategic intelligence sharing, […]

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