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Russia Pushing Ukraine Conflict to 'Point of No Return,' EU Leader Says - New York Times

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Europe |Russia Pushing Ukraine Conflict to ‘Point of No Return,’ E.U. Leader Says



http://nyti.ms/1wSKf0A






Europe |​​NYT Now





Pro-Russian fighters near Novoazovsk, Ukraine. “Now we are fighting for all of southeastern Ukraine, for Novorossiya, which was historically a Russian province,” their commander said. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times




BRUSSELS — Warning that Russia was pushing the conflict in Ukraine toward “the point of no return,” the president of the European Union’s executive arm said on Saturday that European leaders meeting in Brussels would probably endorse new and tougher sanctions in an effort to make Moscow “come to reason.”


After morning talks with the visiting president of Ukraine, Petro O. Poroshenko, the head of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, voiced Europe’s growing alarm and exasperation at Russian actions in Ukraine and the risks of a wider war.


Mr. Poroshenko, speaking at a joint news conference with Mr. Barroso, said Ukraine still hoped for a political settlement with Russian-backed rebels in the east of his country but said a flow of Russian troops and armored vehicles into Ukraine in recent days in support of rebels were stoking the fires of a broader conflict.



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“We are too close to a border where there will be no return to the peace plan,” Mr. Poroshenko said, asserting that, since Wednesday, “thousands of foreign troops and hundreds of foreign tanks are now on the territory of Ukraine, with a very high risk not only for the peace and stability of Ukraine but for the peace and stability of the whole of Europe.”




President Vladimir V. Putin, speaking at an education forum for students, said the Ukrainian government must enter substantive talks with the rebels. Mikhail Klimentyev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Russia has repeatedly denied sending troops or military hardware into Ukraine, but after the Ukrainian authorities released videos on Tuesday of captured Russian troops, Moscow conceded that some of its soldiers had crossed into Ukraine “by accident.”


Rebel leaders say Russian servicemen are fighting in Ukraine, but are doing so during their holiday leave from the Russian Army. Alexander Zakharchenko, a separatist leader in Donetsk, said these soldiers “would rather take their vacation not on a beach but with us, among brothers, who are fighting for their freedom.”


Russia’s evasions and denials in response to mounting evidence of its direct involvement in supporting pro-Russian separatists has left even Europe’s more cautious leaders, notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, ready to endorse further sanctions. Ms. Merkel said Thursday that Germany still favored a diplomatic solution.


However, she said, “we have to note that the situation in the last few days has become more difficult, and worsened.” Since March, she added, European Union leaders had said sanctions would be considered if there was an escalation. Her spokesman, Steffan Seisbert, said that Germany would support an extension of economic sanctions because there was no longer any real doubt of what he called a Russian “military intervention.”


Ms. Merkel has spoken regularly with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, by telephone during the crisis but has had no success in curbing Russia’s support for the rebels, who had been losing ground in face of a Ukrainian offensive. Now, reinvigorated by new arms and fighters from Russia, the rebels are expanding territory under their control.


Mr. Barroso said Saturday that he, too, had spoken by telephone with Mr. Putin and “urged him to change course” during a conversation on Friday.


While not directly accusing Russia of sending soldiers into Ukraine, as Mr. Poroshenko and NATO have done, Mr. Barroso said Russian moves to feed fighting in eastern Ukraine were “simply not the way responsible, proud nations should behave in the 21st century.” Further sanctions, Mr. Barroso said, would “show to Russia’s leadership that the current situation is not acceptable and we urge them to come to reason.” European leaders, he added, had long stated that any further escalation of the conflict would set off additional sanctions, and they would “be ready to take some more measures” at a summit meeting in Brussels that began Saturday afternoon.


Saturday’s meeting of European leaders was originally called to discuss appointments to senior jobs within the European Commission. Among jobs up for discussion is the new foreign policy chief to replace Catherine Ashton of Britain. The front-runner for the foreign affairs job is the Italian foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, who has little foreign experience and a reputation for being sympathetic to Russia’s arguments.


But the crisis in Ukraine has complicated the elaborate horse trading for jobs among the union’s 28 member states and turned the focus of Saturday’s meeting toward discussions of new sanctions against Russia.




President Vladimir V. Putin, arriving at an education forum for students, said the Ukrainian government must enter substantive talks with the rebels. RIA Novosti/Reuters

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has been going on for months, mostly around the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. But the conflict expanded last week after the rebels — backed by Russian forces, according to NATO — opened a front along a coastal road leading to the industrial port city of Mariupol.


In Mariupol on Saturday, both Ukrainian military units and the civilian population were preparing to defend the city against any assault by the Russian-backed militias, Ukraine’s military spokesman, Col. Andriy Lysenko, said during a briefing in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.


“We are very grateful to the Mariupol residents, who have also helped in the fortification of the city against the armored vehicles of the enemy,” Colonel Lysenko said. The city fell briefly under the control of pro-Russian fighters earlier this year, but after they were driven out it had been firmly in the hands of Ukraine. The governor of the Donetsk region, forced from his headquarters in the city of Donetsk, decamped there to maintain a formal, if largely impotent, government presence.


Colonel Lysenko said that local residents were volunteering to join the armed forces, but that the military had enough men there “to repel the Russian military and its mercenaries.”


He repeated accusations that the Russians were sending arms and men across the border to support rebel fighters, who have declared independent states in Donetsk and Luhansk. “The direct military aggression of the Russian Federation in the east of Ukraine continues,” he said.


Ukraine also accused Russia on Saturday of helping to shoot down one of its combat aircraft during fighting with the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.


A statement by the Ukrainian government on the Facebook page for its military operations in the southeast said the Su-25 fighter was shot down on Friday, with the pilot ejecting safely. A missile from a Russian launcher struck the plane, it said, without providing any more details. Colonel Lysenko, the military, spokesman also described low-level skirmishes scattered around the areas controlled by the separatists in southeastern Ukraine.


In Moscow, the deputy defense minister, Anatoly Antonov, was quoted as repeating Russian denials that it was supplying men or arms to the fight in Ukraine. Any Russian arms in the hands of the militias came from Ukrainian army stocks captured in the fighting, he was quoted as saying by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.


Mr. Antonov also raised questions about the international investigation into Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which crashed in southeastern Ukraine in July, killing all 298 civilians on board. Ukraine and its Western allies have said that an antiaircraft missile supplied by Russia downed the plane, likely in error. But Moscow, without providing any evidence, blamed Ukraine.


The Russian official questioned why the data recovered from the black box recorders had yet to be released publicly. “The problem should not be abandoned,” the agency quoted Mr. Antonov as saying. “We should find out what happened in the sky over Ukraine.”



Andrew Higgins reported from Brussels, and Neil MacFarquhar from Moscow.




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