European Union leaders meet over Ukraine’s crisis
European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels to discuss Ukraine’s crisis amid allegations by the West and Kyiv regarding Moscow’s military involvement in the country.
This comes as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday pushed EU leaders for tightening sanctions against Russia.
Fears of a wider confrontation in the region rose after NATO said Russia sent at least 1,000 troops into Ukraine to help the pro-Russia forces.
“Invasion of Russian troops in(to) Ukraine is an act of aggression and requires an adequate reaction from the EU,” Poroshenko said on Twitter as he held meetings with top EU officials.
A high-ranking official in Poroshenko’s administration said late Friday that Ukraine’s delegation in Brussels will push for more substantial support for Kyiv and “another set of sanctions against Russia.”
The EU and US have already imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia since the Cold War over Ukraine’s crisis.
Poroshenko will also travel to the NATO summit in Wales next week to meet with US President Barack Obama and seek practical help from the military alliance.
The West and Russia have been at loggerheads over the political situation in Ukraine since pro-Western forces toppled Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kyiv launched military operations to silence the pro-Russians in mid-April.
The unrest in eastern Ukraine has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,200 people. Nearly 300,000 people have also been forced to flee their homes.
RSR/AB