Ukraine seeks concrete steps from Russia on truce

KIEV: Ukraine on Saturday sought concrete steps from Russia to back up a tenuous truce it extended with pro-Moscow rebels in the hope of calming a deadly insurgency sparked by its new westward course.
President Petro Poroshenko returned triumphant from Brussels on Friday having opened the way to Ukraine’s eventual membership in the European Union by signing the final chapters of a landmark free trade and political association accord.
The 1,200-page tome spells out the minute details of the terms under which the splintered ex-Soviet nation will slip from the Kremlin’s embrace and tie its future to European economic standards and values on human rights.
But Poroshenko had ordered his top security chiefs to meet him at the airport on landing in order to make a fateful decision about prolonging an expiring truce with rebels who have seized effective control of Ukraine’s industrial east.
The 12-week insurgency has killed more than 440 people and is viewed by both Kiev and its Western allies as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s retribution for the February toppling of a leader who had ditched the very EU accord Poroshenko had signed in Brussels in favor of closer ties to the Kremlin.
Poroshenko ultimately decided to extend the shaky cease-fire until Monday evening under the condition that Russia requires the insurgents to return border crossings to Ukrainian forces and set up a monitoring mechanism for a long-term truce.
The Ukrainian military on Saturday reported sporadic attacks by pro-Russian gunmen that resulted in no casualties and appeared to be on the decline in comparison to previous days.
Russia’s foreign minister on Saturday accused the United States of encouraging Ukraine to challenge Moscow and heavily weighing in on the European Union.
Speaking in televised remarks Saturday, Sergey Lavrov said that, “our American colleagues still prefer to push the Ukrainian leadership toward a confrontational path.” He added that chances for settling the Ukrainian crisis would have been higher if it only depended on Russia and Europe.
Lavrov spoke after Friday’s European Union summit, which decided not to immediately impose new sanctions on Russia for destabilizing eastern Ukraine, but gave the Russian government and pro-Russian insurgents there until Monday to take steps to improve the situation.
A new round of Western sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine could seriously impact its already stalled economy, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Saturday.
The minister said Russia has prepared for three possible scenarios in the event of tougher economic sanctions.
The less severe one presumes sanctions on “luxury products, caviar, furs, etc,” while the worst “includes the whole complex: metals, fertilizers, oil, gas, and so forth, taking into account prices and volumes.” In this case, “economic growth rates go seriously into the negative,” he told the Rossiya channel, though adding that the economy can still “support” this outcome.
Poroshenko is expected to enlist the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande when he places a scheduled call to Putin on the eve of the cease-fire’s expiry.
Sunday’s teleconference — the second in four days — is primarily meant to check on any visible shift in Moscow before the European Union and Washington consider unleashing biting sanctions against Russia’s financial and defense sectors the following day.
Putin has publically backed the cease-fire’s extensions and promoted direct talks between Poroshenko and top rebel commanders.