Merkel Calls For More Sanctions Against Ukraine Rebels
Berlin/Moscow (Alliance News) – The list of rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine targeted by EU sanctions should grow in the wake of the breakaway region’s “illegitimate” elections at the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday.
“We should look again at the listing of certain people who now have responsibility in eastern Ukraine due to this illegitimate election,” she said in Berlin.
Merkel added that she could not envision the EU repealing the economic sanctions on Russia imposed over its role in the conflict. “We would like to repeal the sanctions, but I cannot see this given the current situation,” she said.
Along with the separatists, sanctions implemented by the EU have hit the Russian energy and defence sectors as well as Russian lawmakers.
The Ukrainian government in Kyiv, along with the EU and the US, rejected the rebel’s leadership vote held Sunday in the Donbass region, which includes the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
The area has been beset by violent conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces since April.
Merkel said the separatists’ poll runs counter to a ceasefire signed by both sides in September in Minsk, Belarus.
But violence has continued despite the truce. More civilians and soldiers were killed or injured Wednesday.
Twelve residents in the village of Frunze, west of the city of Luhansk, were killed in an artillery attack, separatists said.
In Kyiv, the government’s Security Council said two soldiers had died and nine were injured in fighting. Heavy clashes have been ongoing at Donetsk’s airport and in the city’s suburban areas.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatzenyuk said Wednesday that state budget subsidies would be halted to rebel-controlled areas until the “Russian terrorists” leave the region.
Electricity, water and gas have been cut off to the area for months, and Kyiv is only making pension payments in areas the government controls.
In Russia, the state-controlled energy company Gazprom received a transfer of 1.45 billion dollars from Ukraine to partially pay off the country’s gas debts, a company spokesman said.
Ukrainian energy company Naftogas received permission from political leaders in Kyiv on Tuesday to transfer the amount after an EU-mediated deal signed by Russia and Ukraine to ensure Ukraine’s gas supplies through the winter.
The deal ended a protracted gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine prompted by the billions of dollars in arrears and exacerbated by the ongoing conflict.
The standoff prompted concerns in the EU that gas supplies would be disrupted across the continent.
But the deal, signed last week in Brussels and valid through the end of March, set out the terms of payment and anticipated another 1.65 billion dollars to be paid by the end of the year.
Once the full 3.1-billion-dollar debt is repaid, Gazprom intends to resume deliveries to Naftogas, which have been on hold since June.
According to the deal, Russia is also expected to implement a government decree lowering the price for Ukraine’s gas deliveries by 100 dollars – down to 378 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres – for November and December.
Ukraine plans to purchase 4 billion cubic metres of gas, worth 1.5 billion dollars, over the next two months, according to the European Commission.
In Brussels, meanwhile, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said his first visit outside the EU will be to Ukraine. The former Luxembourg prime minister took over the leadership of the commission, the EU’s executive body, on Saturday.
“I promised the Ukrainian president weeks ago that I would like my first bilateral trip outside the EU to be to Kyiv. The invitation has been issued,” Juncker said.
The date of the visit has not been set yet, he said.
When asked whether he also planned on meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Juncker said he would “speak with anyone who would like to speak with me.”
Copyright dpa
