FROM WIRE REPORTS
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine on Friday signed a landmark trade deal to bind itself to the European Union, a monumental step that came in defiance of months of Russian efforts to block the country from turning westward.
The agreement will have “serious consequences” for Ukraine’s relationship with Russia, a top Russian diplomat said immediately after the signing ceremony in Brussels. The decision was also expected to complicate efforts to end more than two months of separatist violence in eastern Ukraine.
The agreement was the same document rejected in November by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. That decision sparked months of protests by pro-Western Ukrainians, a deadly crackdown by Yanukovych and his eventual ouster in February, leading to the greatest tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War.
Friday is “maybe the most important day for my country after independence day,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said as he signed the deal in Brussels, using the pen Yanukovych would have used in November. “All of us would have wished to sign the agreement under different, more comfortable circumstances. On the other hand, the external aggression faced by Ukraine is another strong reason for this crucial step.”
He called for EU leaders to offer assurances that Ukraine could one day become a full member and said his country was committed to joining the union.
Two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, also signed trade deals with the EU on Friday. The agreements will require them to enact economic reforms, as well as to meet EU standards for government contracting, cutting down on the corruption that has plagued all three societies since their independence.
Russia has said it views the expansion of EU ties to its border as a Western encroachment on a region that has long been within the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. Russia has sought to enlist those countries in the Eurasian Union, its competing vision of an alliance based on values dominated by Moscow and free of Western influence.
“The anti-constitutional coup in Kiev and attempts to artificially impose a choice between Europe and Russia on the Ukrainian people have pushed society toward a split and painful confrontation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday in Moscow.
EU leaders — along with those of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova — have said that the deal does not constitute a challenge to Russia.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said the deal would “no doubt ... have serious consequences,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
Along with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia face pro-Russia separatist movements on their soil, and officials in all three countries have expressed fears that Russia will stoke tensions further after the EU deal.
The agreements will open the vast 28-nation EU market, with its 500 million residents, to tariff-free exports from the countries in exchange for gradual work toward bringing regulations up to European standards. Leaders in all three countries hope to follow the model of Poland and the Baltic nations, former Eastern bloc states that are now EU members and whose economies have grown significantly in the 23 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, by contrast, have struggled.
The agreement makes no promises of eventual full EU membership, a step the three countries have said they would like to take. EU leaders have been cautious about commitment to that measure, which would mean opening their labor market to the countries’ citizens. With 46 million residents, Ukraine is more populous than all but five of the EU countries.
Many Ukrainians are also cautious about joining the EU, with polls showing about half in favor, while about a third favor joining the Eurasian Union. Ukraine’s trade volumes with the EU and Russia have been roughly equal.
EU leaders met after the signing ceremony to discuss whether to impose new sanctions on Russia over its conduct in Ukraine. They decided against doing so but gave Russia until Monday to push rebels toward peace.
A fragile cease-fire between government forces and pro-Moscow separatists expired Friday night but was extended by Poroshenko for three more days.
The EU leaders called on the Kremlin “to actively use its influence over the illegally armed groups and to stop the flow of weapons and militants across the border.”
That suggests they might impose further sanctions Monday unless Russia helps implement a durable cease-fire and pushes separatists to hand back captured Ukrainian border checkpoints and to release a team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that was captured in eastern Ukraine a month ago.
Rebels in Donetsk released four of the observers early Friday. Four others were still being held in the neighboring Luhansk region.
Later in the day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest pointed to a statement put out by the European Council after a meeting with Poroshenko, ticking off four actions the council and the United States “expect” Russia to take before Monday: an agreement on the verification mechanism for a cease-fire, return to Ukrainian authorities of all three border checkpoints, release of remaining hostages, and the launch of negotiations on Poroshenko’s peace plan.
Earnest would not say what would happen if those actions weren’t taken by Monday.
The Washington Post,
The Associated Press
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