Pro-Russian Rebels Hopeful on Peace as Ukraine Sees Threat
(Bloomberg) — Pro-Russian rebels said they were hopeful
the peace process in east Ukraine will continue as the
government in Kyiv accused them of breaching a cease-fire
agreement amid skirmishes.
Ukraine said one of its soldiers was wounded as rebels
attacked government positions 32 times during the past 24 hours,
military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters in Kyiv on
Saturday. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the year-old conflict, according to the United Nations. The U.S., the
European Union and Ukraine say Russia is supplying the
separatists with troops and weapons. Russia denies the
accusations.
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe held a “constructive”
video conference on March 13 following last month’s truce
agreement, Denis Pushilin, the chief negotiator from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said on DPR’s website
Saturday.
“This gives us hope that the peace process will
continue,” he said, urging all involved in the conflict to do
“everything in their power” to ensure the truce holds.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned that the threat
to his country hasn’t disappeared.
No ‘Illusion’
“The process which began a month ago in Minsk should by no
means create any illusion that the threat has diminished or
retreated,” he told a government meeting on Saturday, according
to a statement posted on his website.
Ukraine will improve its fortifications and create a deep
line of defense “lest we want to welcome the enemy in our
cities,” Poroshenko said.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his Russian
counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday discussed “positive”
developments in implementation of the peace deal, the Russian
Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.
Even as Ukraine has said casualties have dropped in the
past weeks, “the prevailing view” among EU members is that
there hasn’t been enough progress yet to start removing the
sanctions the bloc imposed on Russia, Slovak Foreign Minister
Miroslav Lajcak said on Friday.
Russia Sanctioned
Germany intends to argue at a summit of EU leaders next
week that sanctions against Russia should be linked to the full
implementation of the Minsk truce agreement, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported Saturday, citing
unidentified people in the government.
Such a measure would mean that current sanctions would stay
in force until end of 2015, FAS reported. Some EU member states,
such as Italy, Greece and Cyprus, may oppose such a move, the
newspaper reported.
Ukraine, which won approval this week for $17.5 billion of
International Monetary Fund aid, began receiving the first $5
billion tranche from the IMF on Friday, according to the Finance
Ministry. The loan is part of a $40 billion package to rescue
the nation’s economy as it buckles under a plunging hryvnia
currency and the fighting, which has crippled its industrial
heartland.
The country’s bond restructuring may include a reduction in
principal, as well as an extension of maturities and lower
coupons, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said Friday in her
first talks with creditors about easing the country’s debt load.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Aliaksandr Kudrytski in Minsk, Belarus at
akudrytski@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Balazs Penz at
bpenz@bloomberg.net;
Hellmuth Tromm at
htromm@bloomberg.net
Andrea Dudik, Todd White