Germany Shifts to Shuttle Diplomacy as NATO Sees Russian Buildup
(For more on the conflict in Ukraine, see EXT2.)
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) — Germany’s top diplomat shuttled from Kiev to Moscow to prod Ukraine and Russia to revive a flagging cease-fire negotiated in Minsk more than two months ago.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met top Russian and Ukrainian officials yesterday and was received by President Vladimir Putin last night in the Kremlin. There can be no military resolution to the conflict, Steinmeier said after talks in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
“I can understand your skepticism,” Steinmeier told reporters. “But I believe we should keep working to carry out the Minsk protocol.”
Diplomacy was in the forefront as Ukraine and Russia clashed over how to move toward a new cease-fire agreement. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized Russia yesterday for staging a “serious military buildup” and sending troops and weapons across its border. Russia denies military involvement in the former Soviet republic.
The conflict intensified after pro-Russian separatists held Nov. 2 elections condemned by Ukraine, the U.S. and the European Union as illegitimate. Russia was violating the Minsk agreement, which has been broken almost daily, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.
Six Ukrainian troops were killed and nine wounded in the previous 24 hours, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said yesterday. Rebels shelled government positions 28 times in the past day, the Defense Ministry in Kiev said in a statement.
‘Destabilizing Russia’
“Russia is still destabilizing Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels. “We see the movement of troops, of equipment, of tanks, of artillery and also advanced air-defense systems. This is in violation of the cease-fire agreements.”
Yatsenyuk advocated new “Geneva format” talks, which would include the U.S., to de-escalate the crisis. Russia said that framework, which followed April talks in the Swiss city that excluded pro-Russian separatists, would skirt a process that led to a Sept. 5 cease-fire in Minsk.
“There is the Minsk format,” Lavrov said yesterday in the Belarusian capital. “Attempts to dissolve this format, to present it in a way that the insurgents, representatives of the southeast, may sit aside while the ‘grown-ups’ agree on what to do — such attempts are completely illusory.”
Geneva Talks
Four-way talks in Geneva in April led to an agreement to ease tension after Putin’s March annexation of the Crimean peninsula. The pact later unraveled as fighting intensified in the conflict, which has killed more than 4,100 people and wounded almost 10,000, according to United Nations estimates.
EU foreign ministers decided during a meeting two days ago to impose additional travel bans and asset freezes against separatists involved in the Nov. 2 ballots and will release the names by the end of the month. The bloc left unclear whether Russian supporters of the breakaway states in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions also would be targeted.
They stopped short of stiffer economic sanctions against Russian companies or industries, and may deliberate the matter again at a Dec. 18-19 conference.
The EU has blacklisted 119 Russians and Ukrainians, including at least eight officials and military officers from the breakaway regions. Sanctions require unanimity among the 28 governments in the bloc, which have struggled to overcome divisions over how to deal with Russia.
–With assistance from James G. Neuger in Brussels and Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow.
To contact the reporters on this story: Volodymyr Verbyany in Kiev at vverbyany1@bloomberg.net; Aliaksandr Kudrytski in Minsk, Belarus at akudrytski@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net Paul Abelsky, Larry Liebert
