Putin, defiant toward West, likens Ukraine conflict to WWII

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit Friday to the youth educational forum at Lake Seliger, in the Tver region northwest of Moscow. (Mikhail Klimentyev / Associated Press)

Evoking startling images of siege and empire, Russian President Vladimir #Putin on Friday struck a defiant pose over the deployment of troops and tanks in eastern #Ukraine, declaring that Russia has no plans for “large-scale conflicts” but reminding the #world that he presides over a nuclear-armed state.

“It's best not to mess with us,” Putin said, referring to Russian separatist fighters in Ukraine with a term that dates back to the era of the Russian empire — “New Russia militia” — and likening their battle with Ukrainian army forces to Soviet citizens' heroic resistance during the German Nazi siege of Leningrad.

His comments, designed to cast the Ukraine conflict as a World War II-like aggression inspired by the West, came a day after President Obama warned of the mounting costs to Russians as their government deepens its involvement in eastern Ukraine.

The Obama administration's new appeal to Russian public opinion probably reflects growing doubt that the U.S. can bring Putin to the negotiating table over Ukraine, as the Kremlin leader wages his own campaign designed to stoke Russians' nationalist pride and nostalgia for its the lost superpower status.

“Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers,” Putin said during a visit to a Kremlin-sponsored youth camp, clearly aiming to marshal public support for a military campaign that has brought international isolation and increasingly stringent economic sanctions.

Obama on Thursday warned that stricter sanctions would be forthcoming after NATO released satellite surveillance images showing Russian armored columns crossing into southeastern Ukraine.

And the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, called up images of the human cost likely to be borne by the Russian military south of its borders. “In Russia, family members of Russian soldiers are holding funerals for their loved ones who have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine,” she told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

The U.S. is playing on growing Russian fear that the March annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, which boosted Putin's approval ratings to record heights, could lead to a bloody and lengthy war.

The U.N. on Friday reported that the death toll in Ukraine as of Wednesday had risen to at least 2,593 since fighting between separatists and government troops escalated in mid-April. The report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights blamed all parties in the conflict for inflicting “intolerable hardships” on civilians, who are being killed at a rate of 36 a day.

State Department officials said this week that the Russian military was sending troops 30 miles into Ukraine, while concealing that fact from them and their families. Also undisclosed, officials said, was the presence in St. Petersburg hospitals of soldiers wounded in Ukraine.

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, noted a report in a Russian newspaper that authorities had gone so far as to move the graves of two Russian paratroopers killed in Ukraine to conceal their deaths from the public.

Reporters for several independent news sites in Russia said they ran into trouble while checking relatives' reports that paratroopers who had been killed in fighting near Luhansk had been buried secretly near Pskov. The reporters said they were chased away by beefy men who appeared to be with the security services.

If casualties do begin to accumulate, “that could undermine the entire basis of public support for what Putin's doing,” said Pifer, who is now with the Brookings Institution.


But the costs to Russian society for backing the separatists aren't yet apparent to most Russians, who have applauded the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea and its defense of Russians' rights in former Soviet republics that are now sovereign states.

U.S. reliance on sanctions as a tool for stirring public opposition to Putin's Ukraine policies has so far helped the Kremlin cast Washington as the perpetrators of any economic damage the country is suffering.

Though some polls show that many Russians — 90% in one survey — oppose a war in Ukraine, there are significant signs of continuing public hostility toward Western influence in the neighboring nation.

Washington's Pew Research Center said an early August survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center found that 77% of respondents in Russia believed the Ukrainian government's military operation to recover territory from the separatists was launched at the encouragement of the United States.

As many as 52% believed that Ukraine had “become a puppet in the hands of the West and the U.S.A., who are pursuing an anti-Russia policy,” the poll found in a question that asked respondents to evaluate why the new leadership in Ukraine preferred to ally with the European Union over a Kremlin-controlled trade group.

“The story that comes through to you if you're the average Russian is that it's the Americans egging on this Ukrainian Nazi junta to attack peaceful civilians in eastern Ukraine,” said Olga Oliker, associate director of Rand Corp.'s International Security and Defense Policy Center.

In the Kremlin view, Russia is a brave force willing to stand up to the West to protect Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine from repression and to withstand the unjust sanctions imposed on it for its noble actions, Oliker said.

Putin clearly sought to reinforce that narrative Friday as state television cameras captured his choreographed exchange with the young campers.


“Small villages and large cities are surrounded by the Ukrainian army, which is directly hitting residential areas with the aim of destroying the infrastructure,” he said. “It sadly reminds me of the events of the Second World War, when German fascist ... occupiers surrounded our cities.”

EU foreign ministers meeting Friday in Milan debated calls for stepping up economic sanctions on Moscow, which to date have targeted a few dozen Kremlin officials and tightened Russia's access to international financial institutions.

“We have to be aware of what we are facing: We are now in the midst of a second Russian invasion of Ukraine within a year,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, referring to Russia's seizure of Crimea. Citing the Russian forces' opening of a new front along Ukraine's Sea of Azov this week, Bildt said Russia's hand in the Ukraine violence was indisputable and that it was time “to call a spade a spade.”

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called Putin on Friday to condemn the “significant incursions into and operations on Ukrainian soil by Russian military units” and warned that further intrusions would “carry high costs,” his office reported. The LA Times

Ukrainian separatists kill 18 soldiers in east, army says

Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission to invade, NATO said Wednesday.

Armed pro-Russian separatists inspect wreckage near a damaged building following what locals say was a recent airstrike by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk, August 6, 2014. Photo by Reuters

Eighteen #Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and 54 injured in fresh fighting with separatist rebels, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

The spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said government forces had clashed with #separatists 25 times in parts of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border in the 24 hours up to Wednesday morning as they continued to squeeze rebel positions.

Ukrainian forces, he said, had again been shelled from inside Russian territory while Ukrainian frontier guards near the border town of Luhansk had come under a four-hour mortar and artillery attack.

"In the past 24 hours, 18 service personnel have been killed in battle and 54 have been wounded," he told journalists, saying casualties had been sustained in several different incidents in the east.

Government troops have been battling the rebels since April in the Russian-speaking east in a conflict which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says has cost the lives of more than 1,100 people, including government forces, rebels and civilians.

The new overnight deaths among government forces suggests that Kiev military losses now total around 400.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of orchestrating the revolt and arming the rebels – something denied by Moscow. The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia.

Fighting has intensified since the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner last month, killing all 298 people on board – an act the West laid at the door of the rebels. Russia and the rebels blame the disaster on Kiev's military offensive.

Residents in Donetsk, east Ukraine's main industrial hub and now the main redoubt of the rebels, said Ukrainian warplanes had carried out air strikes overnight.

One resident, who gave only her first name of Svetlana, said: "It was terrible. It was the most powerful strike we have had. The walls of the apartment shook when it [the missile] struck the market and the bus stop next to it".

Lysenko, questioned over the reports, denied that Ukrainian planes had carried out air strikes on the town of nearly one million and said the only Ukrainian plane near the town had been an aircraft providing communications support for troops on the ground.

"The Ukrainian military does not bomb the towns of Donetsk and Luhansk or any other similar populated places," he said.

Russia amassing forces

Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission to invade, NATO said on Wednesday.

Stating the conflict in Ukraine was fuelled by Russia, NATO said in a statement that the troop build-up had further escalated "a dangerous situation."

"We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground – and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement.

NATO was concerned that Moscow could use "the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine," she said.

Moscow denies Western accusations that it has armed and supported rebels who are fighting Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine. It announced new military exercises to take place all this week, involving bombers and warplanes on Monday in a show of strength near the border with Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday the threat of a direct intervention by Russia's military in Ukraine has risen over the last couple of days.

NATO said early this year that Russia had amassed some 40,000 troops close to the Ukraine border. By June, the number had dropped to less than 1,000, but then Russia started building the force up again.

A NATO military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that early this month Russia had significantly increased the number of troops near the Russian border.

The roughly 20,000-strong troop presence included tanks, infantry, artillery, air defence systems, as well as logistics troops, special forces, and various aircraft, the officer said.

Previously, Russia has used military exercises as cover for intervention, military analysts say.

The European Union and the United States last week agreed tough new sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, marking a new phase in the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.


The conflict worsened dramatically after the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over rebel-held territory on July 17 by what Western countries say was a Russian-supplied missile. Haaretz

The US Says It Has New Evidence That Russia Fired Artillery At Ukrainian Troops

Ukrainian soldiers stand with an armoured personnel carrier at a checkpoint near the town of Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine May 2, 2014.

The United States on Thursday said it had evidence #Russian forces were firing artillery from inside Russia on Ukrainian troops, in what officials called a "clear escalation" of the conflict.

Moscow is also planning to "deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers" to the pro-Russian separatist forces in #Ukraine, #US deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

The evidence was based on "intelligence information" indicating arms were "continuing to flow across the border" into Ukraine since the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner with 298 on board, Harf said.

But she refused to reveal the evidence behind the allegation or give further information.

"They're firing artillery from within Russia to attack Ukrainian military," Harf told reporters.

Washington, however, was still looking into the downing of two Ukrainian fighter jets on Wednesday. Kiev has alleged the warplanes were hit by missiles fired from Russian territory.

The shelling by Russian forces against Ukrainian positions had been "going on for several days," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren.

"It's a clear escalation," Warren told reporters.

The Pentagon did not specify the precise location of the Russian artillery units or the artillery fire.

The Russian shelling has taken place "within the last 14 days," according to a statement issued by US intelligence agencies.

Russia has continued a troop build-up near the border of Ukraine and kept up deliveries of arms and equipment to separatists since the downing of the Malaysian airliner, US defense officials told AFP.

The Russians have sent at least one battalion a week to the border area in recent weeks, raising the troop level to 15,000 forces, up from about 12,000 last week, said two defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It looks like a steady increase," one official said.

Military hardware has also continued to arrive at a large base set up near Rostov, which is used as a staging and training area before the equipment is transported to the rebels in Ukraine, according to defense officials.

US intelligence officials said this week that artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems recently arrived at the southwestern base in Rostov.

At a briefing earlier this week, US intelligence officials cited commercial satellite photos that showed new structures and an apparent expansion of the base over the past month.

Copyright (2014) AFP. All rights reserved.

Ukraine Accuses Insurgents of Blocking Access to Crash Site

A miner inspects a piece of debris found in a field in Grabovka, Ukraine. 

A pro-Russian fighter inspected the crash site near the village of Hrabove on Friday. 

KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government accused Russian-backed insurgents on Saturday of blocking recovery workers from the crash site of #Malaysia Airlines 17, which was shot down by a missile on Thursday, and of trying to destroy evidence surrounding the attack.

“The #Russian-led terrorists are preventing access of the international community and foreign governments to the location where the Malaysia Airlines airplane crashed on July 17 and are obstructing the launch of an investigation,” the government’s statement said.

The government said that it had information that 38 bodies were taken to the morgue in Donetsk, a regional capital that is a rebel stronghold.

On Friday, government officials had said they were planning to take the bodies of the 298 victims of the jetliner disaster to Kharkiv, a city that is under Ukrainian government control. They said a special laboratory would be deployed there to help identify remains and that the inquiry into the disaster, which is to involve experts from several countries, would also be based in Kharkiv.

At a news conference in Kiev on Saturday, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s national Defense and Security Council, said he could not provide information about the crash scene, because “terrorists” were blocking the government’s access.

“At present we have limited information and limited ability to obtain formal information,” Mr. Lysenko said. “The people who are working from our side, they do not have the ability of free movement. They are under control of the terrorists. They are guarding the place. They are taking out all the evidence.”

He added, “The terrorists, they collect everything in their hands.”

The government’s allegations of obstruction underscored the difficulty of trying to carryout a recovery operation in what remains an active combat zone.

And even as officials in Kiev demanded free access to the crash site, there were reports of heavy fighting in the city of Luhansk, with at least five Ukrainian soldiers killed, according to the government. Ukrainian news services reporting explosions in the center of the city. New York Time

Ukraine Orphans Become Hostages in Civil Conflict

People look out a bus window as they depart to seek refugees to Russia in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Monday, July 14, 2014. Five busloads of Internally Displaced People from the towns of Slavyansk, Karlovka, Maryinka and Donetsk left here Monday morning for the Rostov region in Russia to ask for refugee status there. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Tamara Popova and her fellow orphans are adamant: They don't want to go to #Russia. The separatist gunmen running this eastern Ukrainian city aren't asking. They're giving orders.

As fighting between insurgent and government troops closes in on the city, the 130 or so children living at #Donetsk Orphanage No. 1 find themselves in the middle of a tug of war.

The insurgents say the children will be safer in Russia. #Ukraine wants to move them to facilities in government-held territory, at least until the fighting dies own. It says taking them outside the country would be tantamount to a kidnapping.

"Normal people would ask our opinion," the 16-year-old Popova said, as other orphans nodded in agreement. "We told them that this was against the law, that we have brothers and sisters here. But then they started to swear."

The orphanage has children from age 7 into their late teens. It's clean and well-ordered. Pictures of stars from the local Shaktyar Donetsk soccer team hang in one room. Another is decorated with a fairytale tableau. Girls' bedrooms are decked in pink wallpaper and hung with floral pattern curtains.

It's an image of peace undermined by the menace of violence. Men bearing automatic rifles arrived one recent day to lay down the law about moving to Russia, terrifying everybody.

Yelena Im, 16, scoffed at insurgent claims they have the orphans' best interests at heart.

"If they act like that when they want to take us — everybody was crying — then I don't know how they will treat us there," Im said. "They took away our passports. We told them to give us back our documents, that we need them. What right do they have to take them?

"But they don't answer. They just turn around and start screaming again."

Both sides appear to be using the orphans for propaganda.

"Under Ukrainian law, the actions of these scoundrels should be qualified as a criminal offense," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russia, meanwhile, touts the large numbers of child refugees heading toward Russia as proof that Ukraine can't take care of them.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia's children's rights ombudsman, said Sunday there were 22,000 Ukrainian child refugees in Russia. He urged Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to "defend the most defenseless, the orphans of Ukraine.

"Allow them to leave for Russia!"

The orphans themselves remain caught in the middle. Orphanage director Olga Volkova said the insurgents made clear they must do as they are told.

"We were told that if we don't comply, then this will be considered sabotage, because during wartime we must comply with orders," she said. "And if we don't, then we will be talked to in a different way."
AP

Lavrov, Klimkin to meet today to discuss crisis

A pro-Russian militant stops the tram traffic as he takes part in the storm of the regional police station in the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on July 1, 2014. 

PARIS, July 1 (Reuters) - The Russian, Ukrainian, German and French foreign ministers will meet in Berlin on Wednesday to try to push forward peace initiatives to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, a French diplomatic source said.

"There is not a precise objective. It's an opportunity to work on peace efforts, but we don't want to raise expectations," the source said on Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov backed the idea of the July 2 meeting with France's Laurent Fabius and Ukraine's Pavlo Klimkin during a telephone conversation with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier about the Ukraine crisis late on Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. (Reporting By John Irish in Paris and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow) 

Ukraine’s Poroshenko ends ceasefire with pro-Russia rebels

© Photo: AFP

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday he was abandoning a unilateral ceasefire in the conflict with #pro-Russian separatists after talks with Russia and European leaders failed to start a broader peace process.

Poroshenko’s decision, announced shortly after the much-violated 10-day ceasefire expired, raises the prospect of renewed escalation of a conflict that has killed more than 400 people.

"After examining the situation I have decided, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, not to extend the unilateral ceasefire," the newly-elected leader said in a televised address early on Tuesday. "We will attack."

There was no immediate sign of a response from Russia early Tuesday.

The idea behind the truce announced on June 20 was to give pro-Russia rebels a chance to disarm and to start a broader peace process including an amnesty and new elections. Poroshenko, a wealthy candy magnate elected on May 25, had already extended the ceasefire from seven days.

But the rebels did not disarm, and the ceasefire was continually violated, with both sides blaming each other. Rebels called the ceasefire fake and did not yield to Poroshenko’s latest push to get them to turn over key border crossings with Russia and permit international monitoring.

“The unique chance to put the peace plan into practice was not realised,” Poroshenko said. “This happened because of the criminal actions of the fighters.” He said the militants violated the truce “more than a hundred times.”

‘Ready to return to ceasefire’

The announcement could trigger a steep escalation in the months-long conflict after a diplomatic push led by France and Germany failed to convince Kiev to extend a 10-day truce that did not quell the fighting in the rebellious eastern regions.

But Poroshenko – under pressure from the Ukrainian public to toughen his stance on the uprising – insisted that Kiev was not abandoning its peace plan altogether.

"We are even ready to return to a ceasefire at any moment. When we see that all the parties agree to enact the essential points of the peace plan," he said.

#Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Moscow of fuelling the bloodshed that has claimed some 450 lives by sending arms and fighters across the porous border between the two ex-Soviet neighbours.

The Ukrainian president's announcement came a few hours after a conference call with the leaders of Russia, France and Germany.

The French presidency had said that Kiev and Moscow were working on the "adoption of an agreement on a bilateral ceasefire," sparking expectations that the truce would continue.

But Kiev said only that all sides agreed that a new bilateral ceasefire should be discussed at a fresh round of "consultations" involving an OSCE envoy, a Russian diplomat and former Ukrainian leader Leonid Kuchma.

For its part, the Kremlin backed new indirect talks and said Putin had "stressed the importance of extending a ceasefire," to be monitored by international observers. AFP

Ukraine, EU leaders to press Putin before truce expiry

KIEV : German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will join Ukraine’s new leader on a Sunday call to Russia’s Vladimir Putin before Kiev’s shaky truce with pro-Kremlin separatists expires.

The second such teleconference in four days was arranged in Brussels on Friday when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko put his name to a historic trade deal with Europe that breaks Kiev’s bonds with Moscow. The European Union also warned #Putin that he had until Monday to put explicit pressure on the fighters to suspend their 13-week uprising in #Ukraine’s industrial east or Russia would face punishing economic sanctions.

The Russian strongman is likely to win credit for the rebels’ decision on Saturday to release the second and last team of unarmed European monitors they had detained at the end of May.

But the battles have raged on despite the brief ceasefire and Poroshenko has hinted that he may again resort to force should the guerrillas fail to disarm and cede control of state buildings across a dozen cities and towns.
The Ukrainian military reported losing three soldiers in fighting on Saturday. The rebels also mounted two brief attacks on an airfield not far from their base of power in the city of Slavyansk on Sunday morning.

Poroshenko has demanded that the militias give up control of Russian border crossings and help set up a monitoring mechanism for a long-term truce that can put an end to the low-intensity warfare that has already claimed 450 lives.

Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of arming and funding the militias in a bid to unsettle the new Ukrainian government as revenge for the February ouster of a pro-Kremlin president who had ditched the very EU agreement Poroshenko signed on Friday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the current ceasefire - due to expire on Monday at 1900 GMT - “is a positive sign but it is only the start of a process.”

“The weapons must be silenced in a lasting way to give negotiations a chance of succeeding,” Steinmeier stressed.

The possibility of the United States and Europe freezing access to Russia’s banking sector has already dented the country’s outlook and raised the possibility of the economy contracting for the first time since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Russia’s economy minister warned on Saturday that new sanctions could “seriously” impact growth that the International Monetary Fund believes may only reach 0.2 percent this year.

But public statements in Moscow indicate it is busy preparing an economic counter-offensive, putting up prohibitive barriers to its trade with Ukraine, which relies heavily on exports to Russia.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Russia would treat Ukraine and the ex-Soviet states of Georgia of Moldova that signed their own EU deals on Friday “based on one criterium - how (the agreements) might hurt Russian trade”.

Russian and EU ministers have tentatively agreed to meet on July 11 to discuss how Moscow’s concerns might be best addressed.

Ukraine’s commissioner on European integration said he expected the consultations with Russia to be acrimonious and possibly fruitless.

“Our neighbour has this desire to always act as our big brother, a mentor, to always try teaching us something,” Valeriy Pyatnitskiy told Kiev’s Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly.

“But if they realise that this is a dialogue of equals, then its obvious that our talks will fail.”
Pyatnitskiy added that Ukraine may have no choice but to appeal to the World Trade Organisation - a global free commerce club Russia only joined in 2012 - to step in as a broker of last resort.
“The WTO - there is no question about it,” Pyatnitskiy said. “We are already preparing the corresponding work.”

Ukraine Extends Truce With Rebels After Sealing EU Pact

Ukraine's new leader extended a tenuous truce with pro-Moscow rebels on Saturday after signing a landmark European Union (EU) deal on closer relations and possible future membership that drew immediate threats of retaliation by Russia.

President #Petro Poroshenko's decision to prolong the ceasefire agreement until 1900 GMT on Monday came after three hours of urgent consultation with his top defence official that began on his return from a historic summit in Brussels with the original one-week truce having already lapsed.

Separatist commanders in #Ukraine's heavily Russified eastern rustbelt had earlier said they also agreed to halt fire for 72 hours to give the first indirect contacts on ending nearly 11 weeks of fighting a chance to work.

Poroshenko had earlier hailed his signing in Brussels of the #EU Association Agreement - a 1,200-page document defining the political and trade terms under which Kiev will slip from the Kremlin's embrace - as a turning point for a country that straddles a geopolitical fault line between Europe and Russia.

The deal also bursts Russian President Vladimir Putin's dream of enlisting Kiev in a Moscow-led alliance that could rival the European Union and NATO.

The Kremlin immediately vowed to take "all the necessary measures" against Ukraine.

But Poroshenko argued in Brussels that the deal offered Ukraine "an absolutely new perspective" and "the opportunity to modernise".

"It is a historic day, the most important day since independence," he declared.

US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the political association and free trade agreements - also sealed on Friday with ex-Soviet Moldova and Georgia - as a "major step" to building "a Europe whole, free and at peace."

"I think it is noteworthy that exactly what President Putin was trying to prevent from his interfering in Ukraine has now happened," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf added.

Yet Poroshenko celebration of Ukraine's historic shift westward came with his army reporting the death of five more soldiers in attacks by rebels who do not appear to care about decisions taken by the formal separatist leaders.

Putin strongly denies exerting control over the fighters and is yet to address in public reports from Kiev and Washington of rocket launchers and even tanks crossing the Russian border into the conflict zone.

But the Kremlin chief is also facing the threat of imminent economic sanctions should he fail to show that he is backing Poroshenko's bid to end nearly two months of fighting that have claimed more than 440 lives.

EU leaders chose not to make an act on sanctions in Brussels and instead gave Russia until Monday to vividly demonstrate a more conciliatory approach toward Ukraine.

A statement adopted on Friday underlined the leaders' "commitment to reconvene at any time for further significant restrictive measures".

But analysts said the European Union will be pushing the two sides to pursue diplomacy for as long as possibly in order to avoid jeopardising their strong energy and financial ties with Russia.

"While the EU is prepared to impose sectorial sanctions, this will only be at a later stage, most likely September/October, after diplomacy has been given more time," the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy said in a report.

However, Russia's economy has already suffered from a massive outflow of capital from investors jittery about the impact of threatened restrictions being imposed on the country's banks and export sectors.

Moody's on Friday cut Russia's rating outlook to "negative" due to growing "geopolitical risk".

The ousted pro-Russian president had ditched the EU pact's planned signing in November out of intense and political pressure from the Kremlin that included the threat of Ukraine's good effectively losing access to the Russian market.

The European Union argued in the free trade deal's defence that it would boost Ukraine's exports to the 28-nation bloc by US$1.35 billion (1.0 billion euros) a year and save the nation of 46 million roughly half that amount in revoked customs duties.

Russia now warns it will have no choice but to slap punishing trade restrictions on Ukraine after already nearly doubling its gas price - a step Kiev disputed and that led to a cut in its supplies this month.

The state-run gas giant Gazprom also warned central European countries negotiating emergency "reverse flow" deliveries to Ukraine that it would limit their own supplies should such shipments be made.

Gazprom says its contracts prohibit European clients from selling its own gas to other countries without the Russian government's consent.

Yet some analysts still believe that Ukraine's economy - already expected to shrink by an additional five percent this year - should eventually benefit from the adoption of European business and production standards that could make its goods competitive again.

"The agreement... should act as an anchor for much-needed economic and political reforms," London's Capital Economics consultancy said in a research note. Tolo News

Ukraine vows firm response after rebels shoot down military plane

Pro-Russian separatists walk at the site of the crash of the Il-76 Ukrainian army transport plane in Luhansk, June 14, 2014

(Reuters) - Ukraine's president promised a tough response on Saturday to pro-#Russian separatists who shot down an army transport plane, killing 49 servicemen and dealing a blow to a military campaign to crush their uprising.

Newly installed Petro Poroshenko summoned security chiefs for consultations after the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile as it came in to land at an airport outside the city of Luhansk, a center of the rebellion in east #Ukraine.

"All those involved in cynical acts of terrorism of this magnitude must be punished," he said, declaring Sunday a day of mourning for the nine crew and 40 paratroopers killed.

He later issued a separate statement saying he had called another meeting of his security chiefs for Monday, and that the armed forces had already intensified their operation - intended to prevent Ukraine breaking up.

"For the sake of peace, we will act decisively and purposefully," he said, hailing the seizure of the port city of Mariupol from the rebels on Friday and the recapture of 248 km (155 miles) of the frontier with Russia "across which the terrorists get weapons, equipment, reinforcements and money."

Charred debris was scattered for hundreds of meters (yards) over the sloping wheat field where the plane came down near Novohannivka, a village 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Luhansk.

The tail section jutted up from the ground, with pieces of the engines, fuselage and other parts lying around it. A platoon of rebel forces in camouflage scoured the ruins for ammunition.

"This is how we work. The fascists can bring as many reinforcements as they want, but we will do this every time. We will talk to them on our own terms," said a stocky 50-year-old rebel who identified himself as Pyotr, his 'nom de guerre'.

He had an assault rifle in one hand, a light machine gun in the other and two ammunition belts round his neck.

RUSSIAN TENSIONS WITH THE WEST

The death toll was the highest suffered by government forces in a single incident since the crisis flared in February and is likely to fuel tension between Russia and Kiev's main ally, the United States, which accuses Moscow of arming the rebels.

In a telephone call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed condolences for the servicemen's deaths, a senior State Department official said.

Kerry also spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and warned him that the United States and its G7 partners would "raise the costs" Moscow could face unless it curbed weapons supplies into Ukraine and cut ties with the separatists.

The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine - largely limiting them to visa bans and asset freezes on some individuals, banks and companies - but said they could get tougher if Moscow does not respond.

"We condemn the shooting down of the Ukrainian military plane and continue to be deeply concerned about the situation in eastern Ukraine, including by the fact that militant and separatist groups have received heavy weapons from Russia, including tanks, which is a significant escalation," a White House spokeswoman said.

In Kiev, protesters pelted the Russian embassy with eggs and ripped up a Russian flag in protest of what they called Moscow's backing of the separatist rebels in east Ukraine. Washington condemned the attack.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin denies Moscow is behind the uprising, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande expressed dismay over the attack in a three-way telephone call with him.

Echoing the U.S. criticism, the German government said Russia must control its borders effectively to prevent arms and combatants entering Ukraine and use its influence with the rebels to secure and protect a truce.

GAS TALKS

The separatists say they get their weapons from looted military stockpiles. They shot down a military cargo plane last week, killing three people, and a general was among 14 killed when an Mi-8 transport helicopter was hit on May 29.

Despite the continuing violence, Ukraine and Russia have begun talks on a peace plan and Moscow made a goodwill gesture by agreeing to make a last attempt to solve a gas pricing dispute before a Monday deadline to cut off supplies to Kiev.

Talks broke up shortly after they began in Kiev on Saturday evening but were due to resume on Sunday. Cutting off supplies to Kiev could also cause disruptions to deliveries to the European Union, which gets half its gas imports from Russia through Ukraine.

The talks have been complicated by tension over the uprising in Russian-speaking east Ukraine, which the rebels want Moscow to annexe, as it did Crimea in March. Their calls for a Russian invasion have gone unanswered.

Russia fears losing influence in Ukraine following the overthrow of its Moscow-leaning president in February and its new leaders' pro-Western policies. Ukraine was ruled from Moscow in Soviet times and is seen by Russians as the cradle of their civilization.

Ukraine to create humanitarian corridors

Pro-Russia militants have been battling Ukrainian forces in areas of Luhansk and Donetsk

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the creation of humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee areas of the east hit by conflict.

In a statement, the presidency said ministers had been ordered to set up "all necessary conditions for civilians who want to leave".

Violence between pro-Russia militants and #Ukrainian forces has left more than 200 people dead, officials say.

#Russia called for corridors last week to enable civilians to leave.

Mr Poroshenko, who met Russia's President Vladimir #Putin on Friday at the D-Day commemorations in France, said at his inauguration in Kiev the next day that he would provide safe passage for "Russian militants" out of Ukraine.

Violence is continuing in two eastern regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, where separatists have declared independence. Some of the worst attacks have been in and around the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Mr Poroshenko (L) and the Russian leader attended commemorations in Normandy on Friday

Pro-Russia gunmen are holding several government buildings and Ukrainian troops are taking part in a "counter-terror operation".

But Ukraine's new leader has declared that "we must stop the gunfire this week" and called for daily meetings involving representatives from Kiev, Moscow and the Organization for Security and Co-operation and Europe.

In his statement, President Poroshenko said that to prevent further victims of the "counter-terror operation" he had instructed all heads of law enforcement agencies to create the safe corridors for civilians. BBC News

Ukraine Orders Evacuation Route as Peace Talks Progress

Mikhail Zurabov, Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. Peace talks took place between Zurabov, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Pavlo Klimkin and Heidi Tagliavini, a special representative from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. AFP/Getty Imabe

#Ukraine’s president ordered the creation of an evacuation corridor so civilians can flee fighting in the country’s battle-torn east after his Foreign Ministry said peace talks with #Russia were yielding progress.

Petro Poroshenko, sworn in June 7 after a landslide May election victory, ordered other Ukrainian regions to take in refugees from where government forces are fighting separatist rebels who want to leave Ukraine and join Russia. Ukrainian troops repelled attacks on airfields in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions last night, killing about 40 rebels, anti-terror operation spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said by phone.

The fighting raged after three-way meetings between Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kiev reached agreement on implementing a peace plan drawn up by Poroshenko and on priorities for de-escalation in Donetsk and Luhansk, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The former Soviet republic blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for fomenting the unrest.

“The president has ordered the creation of a rescue corridor for peaceful people willing to leave the territory where the anti-terrorist operation is being carried out,” Poroshenko’s office said in a statement on its website.

Talks Continue

Ukraine’s U.S. and European allies have imposed sanctions on Russia and threatened to tighten them unless Putin acts to ease tensions. Russia says Ukraine must stop using armed force against its own citizens in the mostly Russian-speaking east.

In separate talks, Ukraine and Russia failed to reach an agreement on natural gas deliveries during overnight negotiations hosted by the European Union as OAO Gazprom (GAZP) insisted on receiving a debt payment before a deadline today.

Gazprom will not delay today’s deadline, under which Ukraine must make prepayments for gas supplies, spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said by phone.

“All parties are engaged to avoid any wrong development,” Oettinger said. “We have some open questions and some different positions, but we agreed to continue negotiations.”

Talks may resume today at 9 p.m. central European time or tomorrow morning, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told reporters in Brussels after the meeting, which lasted more than seven hours. The EU, reliant on Russian gas piped through Ukraine for about 15 percent of its supplies, is trying to broker a deal to avert a cutoff.

Slovyansk Siege

The ministry said the Kiev talks will continue in the same format. They took place between Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Pavlo Klimkin, the Russian envoy to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, and Heidi Tagliavini, a special representative from the OSCE.

Billionaire Poroshenko, 48, said at his inauguration that he would draft plans to decentralize power and proposed a partial amnesty and free passage for Russian “mercenaries.”

Clashes have persisted since the speech between rebels and Ukrainian army units seeking to reassert Kiev’s control over the eastern regions. Two government troops were wounded when they beat back attacks by insurgents trying to break out of Slovyansk, a separatist stronghold now surrounded by Ukraine’s anti-terror operation.

“Near the city of Slovyansk, insurgents are continuing attempts to break the siege,” Seleznyov said.

Government forces repelled a separatist strike on an airfield in the Luhansk region as well as another attack on the Kramatorsk airport in Donetsk, where they killed about 40 rebels last night, he said.

Micex Slips

Russia’s financial markets ended two days of gains after rallying in recent weeks on expectations the tension is easing. The Micex stock index weakened 0.5 percent to 1,477.66 at 11:26 a.m. in Moscow after earlier posting a 20 percent jump since mid-March. The ruble lost 0.1 percent against the central bank’s basket of dollars and euros.

Ukraine’s bonds joined the rally last month, after approval of a $17 billion International Monetary Fund loan, and have surged since Poroshenko and Putin held their first presidential meeting last week. The yield on dollar debt due in July 2017 fell 2 basis points to 8.56 percent today at 10:28 a.m. in Kiev. It plunged 40 basis points yesterday, down from 14.7 percent five weeks ago.

In his inaugural speech, Poroshenko switched between languages to address Russian speakers in their mother tongue, pledging to “preserve and strengthen Ukrainian unity and ensure lasting peace.” He said he’d steer the nation toward closer ties with the EU, create jobs and stamp out graft.
Source: Bloomberg

EU Calls on Russia to Work With New Ukraine President

EU leaders urged #Russia on Tuesday to work with new #Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and to continue withdrawing its troops from the country's border.

"We expect (Russia) to cooperate with the newly elected and legitimate president," said a draft #EU summit statement seen by AFP.

Russia should likewise "continue the withdrawal of armed forces from the Ukrainian border and use its leverage on the armed separatists to de-escalate the situation" in the east, it said.

European Union leaders were meeting in Brussels to discuss the outcome of European Parliament elections Tuesday but had also put Ukraine, where Poroshenko won the vote Sunday, on the agenda.

The EU has applied visa bans and asset freezes to a series of high-profile Russian and Ukrainian figures judged to have helped in Moscow's annexation of Crimea or stoked separatist violence in eastern Ukraine.

The draft statement noted that preparatory work on further sanctions was being carried out so that they would be ready "should events so require".

Poroshenko said Monday the military would press its offensive against the insurgents who now control about a dozen cities and towns in the east.

At the same time, the 48-year-old pro-Western chocolate tycoon said he was ready to engage with the Russian leadership and was optimistic a meeting with President Vladimir Putin could be arranged soon.

The EU leaders also pressed on Poroshenko the need to make all efforts on his side to ease the conflict and to continue to adopt economic and political reforms to bring Ukraine up to European standards.

Former Ukraine president Viktor Yukanovych ditched an EU association accord in November under intense Russia pressure but Brussels has since extended many of its provisions to the government in Kiev. Tolo News

Ukraine presidential election appropriate says OSCE

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Euro

-google image

The election of confectionery magnate Petro Poroshenko as president of #Ukraine has been declared fair by international observers.

The 48-year-old emerged a comfortable winner from Sunday’s poll.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the hostile activity by armed groups in the east had not undermined the election’s legitimacy.

Joao Soares who is the #OSCE special coordinator said: “ In #Donetsk city not one polling station opened and that’s a big problem! What we said that it didn’t undermine the legitimacy of these elections because turnout was much bigger then when elections took place on the same day for our European Parliament.”

With the turnout put at over 60% and even Moscow expressing a willingness to work with the victor, Kyiv’s newly elected mayor Vitaliy Klitschko now says he will ask the pro-Europe protesters in the capital’s Independence square to clear up their camp.

Our reporter Maria Korenyuk in Kyiv explained what will happen in the next few weeks:

“Official results of the presidential election will be announced by June 1 and in the next 30 days a swearing-in ceremony will be held in Kyiv. Right after that Petro Poroshenko will visit Donbass to fulfil his campaign pledge to re-establish control in the east.”
Source: Euro News

Poroshenko Wins Ukraine Vote With Russia Ready for Talks

Ukrainian presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko casts his ballot at a polling station during the presidential election in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, May 25, 2014. An exit poll showed that billionaire candy-maker Petro Poroshenko won Ukraine's presidential election outright, a vote that authorities hoped would unify the fractured nation. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

Billionaire Petro Poroshenko won #Ukraine’s presidential election, handing him the task of stemming deadly separatist violence that’s threatened to rip the former Soviet republic apart.

Poroshenko got 54.1 percent of yesterday’s vote with 81 percent of ballots counted, according to the Election Commission in #Kiev. Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was second of the 21 candidates with 13.1 percent. Russia said it’s ready for talks with Poroshenko, though it warned him against renewing a push against rebels who curbed voting in the easternmost regions. Deadly clashes erupted in Donetsk today as gunmen tried to seize the airport.

Poroshenko is faced with a shrinking economy and a pro-Russian separatist movement that’s captured large swathes of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. President Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t recognize the government in Kiev, has pledged to work with the winner. The #US and its allies had said they’d tighten sanctions against Russia if voting was disrupted.

Poroshenko’s victory “marks an important step forward in resolving the political crisis that’s gripped the country,” Neil Shearing, chief emerging-markets economist at London-based Capital Economics Ltd., said today in an e-mailed note. “However, the challenges remain daunting.”

Automatic Gunfire

In Donetsk, a clash between government forces and gunmen near the city’s railway station left one dead and two injured, Novosti Donbassa reported, citing the regional health department. The station was evacuated.

At the local airport, the government sent paratroopers, helicopters and warplanes after the rebels ignored an ultimatum to leave. Traffic police cordoned off roads approaching the airport, where a column of smoke was rising and automatic gunfire could be heard at 3 p.m. All flights were canceled.

With security a major concern, less than a third of polling booths in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions opened yesterday, the local administrations said on their websites. The largely Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions are home to 5.1 million voters, a seventh of Ukraine’s electorate, according to Central Electoral Commission data.

Ukraine held the vote amid separatist unrest that erupted after Russia annexed the Black Sea Crimean peninsula in March. It says the turmoil is orchestrated by the government in Moscow, which denies the accusation. Putin last week ordered a troop pullback from his neighbor’s border after military drills that stoked tensions.

High Turnout’

The election met international standards, according to Joao Soares, who led the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Clearly the election took place in a a challenging political and security environment,” he told reporters today in Kiev. Even so, there was a high turnout, a clear result and the vote was held “in line with international commitments.”

In his first comments since the vote, Poroshenko said last night that he’d seek to end the “war, chaos and disorder” by visiting the troubled eastern regions and working with Russia.

Speaking today in Kiev, he said the government’s operation to rein in the separatists should be more effective. That sets him on a collision course with Russia after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow today that any escalation would be a “colossal mistake.”

“The efficiency of the anti-terrorist operation will be sharply increased,” Poroshenko said. “It shouldn’t last for months -- it should take a few hours.”

‘Equal Dialogue’

Lavrov said the fact the ballot was held is positive and reiterated Putin’s earlier pledge to respect the election’s outcome. There’s now an opportunity to establish a “mutually respectful, equal dialogue,” he told reporters today in Moscow.

Poroshenko said he’d call early parliamentary elections in 2014 as the nation seeks to draw a line under the rule of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed leader who fled for Moscow in February after deadly street protests backing closer European ties.

Poroshenko, who has a fortune of $1 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has flaunted his business acumen and promised to boost wages by nurturing employment and gearing the economy toward Europe through a trade pact. He reiterated yesterday that he’d sell his assets that include the Roshen chocolate company and will hire a bank to help.

‘Important’ Step

The tycoon, who speaks Ukrainian and Russian fluently, is known for his ability to work with different camps. He was foreign minister under President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the 2004 Orange Revolution that helped overturn Yanukovych’s election win, before serving as economy minister under Yanukovych, who had returned to power in 2010.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the election is another “important” step forward in Ukraine’s efforts to unify the country and ensure all citizens’ concerns are addressed.

“The U.S. looks forward to working with the next President, as well as the democratically elected parliament, to support Ukraine’s efforts to enact important political and economic reforms,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ukrainians went to the polls to end “confrontation, chaos and corruption.”

The EU has developed a road map for possible economic sanctions against Russia, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported today, citing an unpublished European Commission document. The first stage would include an arms embargo and restrictions on luxury goods imports, the second would ban coal imports and restrict capital flows and the third foresees a complete ban on oil and gas imports as well as investment restrictions, it said.

The red line laid out by Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for additional sanctions on Russia -- interference with the elections -- was crossed, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican observing the vote in Kiev, said by phone.

“You could have an election in eastern Ukraine if it weren’t for the Russian intimidation and violence,” she said. Bloomberg