Ukraine: pro-Russian separatists hold international observers
Armed pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk seized a bus carrying international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Friday, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
“They are with us in Slovyansk,” the de facto mayor of the city, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, told Reuters in front of the seized security service building where, according to the Ukrainian government, the observers were being held.
“What the situation was I do not know,” he said. “It was reported to me that among them [the observers] was an employee of Kyiv’s secret military staff.
“People who come here as observers bringing with them a real spy: it’s not appropriate.”
Later, a man in a mask and camouflage fatigues said there would be no more comments on Friday evening.
The detention of the observers, who are working for the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), will heighten Western concerns about lawlessness and arbitrary rule in separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine.
The group comprised three German soldiers, a German translator, and military observers from Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry in Berlin said.
“At the moment, talks are going on with representatives of pro-Russian forces. They have refused to free the hostages, saying they want to speak to ‘competent organs’ of the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian interior ministry spokesman said.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on his Twitter account: “Extremely concerned with OSCE inspectors being abducted in a Eastern Ukraine. Including one Swede. They must be released immediately.”
Slovyansk is the biggest flashpoint in an armed uprising in eastern Ukraine that has widened into the worst stand-off between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
Russia ‘starting a third world war’
Earlier Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Friday that the pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine will only lay down their arms if the Ukrainian government clears out the Maidan protest camp in Kyiv.
“The West wants — and this is how it all began — to seize control of Ukraine because of their own political ambitions, not in the interests of the Ukrainian people,” Lavrov said.
He added the pro-Russia insurgents will disarm and vacate buildings “only if Kyiv authorities get down to implementing the Geneva accords, clear out that shameful Maidan and liberate the buildings that have been illegally seized.”
Ukraine’s reaction was swift.
“The world has not yet forgotten the Second World War, but Russia is already keen on starting a third world war,” acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk retorted.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the militia in Ukraine’s east “will be ready” to lay down arms and vacate the buildings only if the protests in Kyiv’s central square are cleared. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)
U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking to reporters in Seoul, said he will call key European leaders later Friday to discuss what’s happened since a deal was reached last week in Geneva to try to de-escalate Ukraine’s worst security crisis since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The West, meanwhile, has accused Russia of fuelling the unrest in Ukraine’s east and failing to use its influence on the pro-Russia insurgents.
“For seven days, Russia has refused to take a single concrete step in the right direction,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday.
“Not a single Russian official, not one, has publicly gone on television in Ukraine and called on the separatists to support the Geneva agreement, to support the stand-down, to give up their weapons and get out of the Ukrainian buildings.”
Geneva deal at issue
At issue is who is adhering to the Geneva deal and what is an illegal occupation. In Geneva, Russia and Ukraine agreed that all illegal groups in Ukraine should be disarmed and all illegally occupied public buildings and spaces should be vacated.
Pro-Russia militia have seized and been occupying government buildings in more than 10 cities in eastern Ukraine.
In the capital of Kyiv, pro-Ukrainian demonstrators continue to operate a tent camp on the city’s main square, known as the Maidan, and occupy several buildings nearby, including city hall. Yulia Torhovets, spokeswoman for the Kyiv city government, said Ukrainian nationalists have promised to free city hall by the end of this week.
Ukraine authorities, however, say the Kyiv occupations are at least tacitly legal because authorities have allowed them.
“Without a doubt, they have all the rights to do this,” Viktoriya Syumar, a deputy head of Ukraine’s Security and Defence Council, told The Associated Press.
Elsewhere, there were scattered reports of violence Friday. Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said a grenade fired from a launcher caused an explosion in a helicopter at an airfield outside the eastern city of Kramatorsk that injured a pilot.
In southern Ukraine, seven people were injured by a blast at a checkpoint set up by local authorities and pro-Ukraine activists outside the Black Sea port of Odesa. Police spokesman Volodymyr Shablienko said unknown men had thrown a grenade at the checkpoint.
Moscow in March took control of Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and annexed it weeks later with the blessing of residents, attracting condemnation of the West as well as sanctions targeting individuals.
Russia’s credit rating cut
Russia’s economy is hurting from its involvement in Ukraine.
The Standard Poor’s credit agency on Friday cut Russia’s credit rating for the first time in more than five years, citing the flight of capital and the risk to investment in Russia since the Ukraine crisis blew up late last year.
Credit ratings are important because they determine the cost of borrowing on international markets. But Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev sought to play down the downgrade, calling it “partly politically motivated.”