June 25, 2014
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said further sanctions against Russia could be “put back on the agenda” if more progress isn’t made to end the Ukrainian conflict as the U.S. government also readied more penalties.
Merkel’s comments come amid Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s call on leaders in Russia, Germany and France to hold joint talks to discuss ways to end months of fighting, which has left hundreds dead. Poroshenko said he will present a draft constitution tomorrow to Ukrainian and European Union officials that seeks to widen regional powers in an attempt to calm the situation in the country’s east.
Militants, seeking closer ties with Russia, have continued to attack government forces defying a week-long cease-fire supported by both Russian President Vladimir Putin and rebel leaders. They downed an Mi-8 chopper in the eastern city of Slovyansk, killing all nine people on board, and have violated the truce 44 times in the past three days, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said yesterday.
“Our aim is not war, it’s not Ukraine who started it,” Poroshenko said at a conference in Kiev today. “But we are not going to agree to peace at any cost and any conditions.”
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said today that “we see no signs that Russia is respecting its international commitments.”
Urge Action
European officials, including U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, urged Russia to take action to stop “the flow of arms across the border, to stop supporting illegally armed separatist groups in eastern Ukraine.”
Hague, speaking to reporters before the meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Brussels today, said that “in the absence of that action by Russia, the case for stronger sanctions by the European Union will of course become stronger.”
While diplomatic solutions are preferred, Merkel told the German parliament in Berlin today, “if nothing else helps, sanctions can be put back on the agenda, and this time they would be third-stage.”
Poroshenko is to brief EU leaders on the state of the cease-fire on June 27.
The U.S. is preparing sanctions against Russia on technology aimed at exploiting and producing oil and gas products, a major part of the Russian economy, as the Obama administration readies the next steps to pressure Russia over the Ukraine crisis, according to three people briefed on the plans.
Business Lobbies
Two top U.S. business lobbies plan to publicly break with President Barack Obama over imposing more sanctions on Russia and are preparing to run newspaper advertisements tomorrow in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, warning that more sanctions risk harming U.S. workers and businesses, said a person familiar with the plans, who asked not to be identified to discuss private deliberations.
Laura Lucas Magnuson, a White House National Security Council spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the administration has had “frequent conversations with business leaders on this issue since the beginning of the crisis to understand their concerns.” The U.S. can’t proceed with “business as usual,” she said.
The government in Kiev and its U.S. and EU allies say Russia is fueling the conflict by allowing weapons including tanks and anti-aircraft missiles -- like the one that downed a military plane June 14, killing 49 soldiers -- to flow to rebels into Ukraine across its border. They also say Russia has provided manpower and other support to the rebels, who sent representatives to speak to senior officials in Moscow last month to seek funding.
Ignoring Facts
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the 28-member bloc is ignoring “inconvenient” facts about the fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatists. It decried the deaths of children, thousands of refugees fleeing to Russia and violations of Russia’s borders.
Russian lawmakers voted today to rescind the authorization they gave Putin on March 1 to use force to protect native Russians in Ukraine.
The EU on June 23 demanded Russia overturn that mandate, which helped fuel months of market volatility in Russia and Ukraine. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader was trying to stabilize Ukraine during peace talks, which started two days ago.
Guarantee Rights
“We think, and it cannot be avoided, that there is a need to start talks about the future organization of Ukraine itself and guarantee the lawful rights and interests of people who live in the southeast of the country,” Putin told reporters in Vienna yesterday.
Those talks are “extremely important,” though it’s “senseless” to demand rebels in Ukraine lay down their arms, he said. Russia will always protect Ukrainians who feel “part of the Russian world,” Putin said, adding that he hopes force won’t be needed.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daria Marchak in Kiev at dmarchak@bloomberg.net; Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net; James G. Neuger in Luxembourg at jneuger@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net; James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net Andrea Dudik, Michael Winfrey
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