West mounts pressure on Russia to save truce
Russia came under mounting pressure from the West yesterday to save Ukraine’s crumbling truce with pro-Kremlin insurgents who are engaged in intensifying raids on an airport vital for sustaining their independence drive.
But analysts said Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to weather isolation and economic sanctions as the cost of cementing his grip on Ukraine’s industrial east.
More than 70 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died since Moscow and Kyiv signed a September 5 truce aimed at halting the five-month war that has claimed nearly 3,300 lives on the European Union’s doorstep.
Ukrainian defence spokesman Andriy Lysenko yesterday said that another two soldiers had died in the past day.
The original ceasefire was reinforced by a September 19 deal to set up a demilitarised zone along the frontline that severs a small part of the Russian-speaking southeast claimed by the rebels from the rest of Ukraine.
But the fighting has raged on and no troop withdrawal has followed.
The guerrillas are now waging an concerted battle for control of an airport on the edge of their main stronghold city of Donetsk that could give them access to airlifted Russian supplies.
The escalating assaults pushed US Secretary of State John Kerry to call Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with an urgent demand for the Kremlin to rein in the rebels and call back army units it has massed on Ukraine’s eastern border.
“Russia must use its influence with the separatists to end these attacks immediately and stop the flow of weapons, equipment and militants into Ukraine,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
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