Putin Demands That Ukraine Pull Its Troops From Southeast
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Speaking with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Thursday, President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reportedly said Ukraine had to initiate a
“broad national dialogue” to resolve tensions.
MOSCOW
— President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel
of Germany on Thursday that Ukraine must remove its military from the
southeastern region of the country to resolve the showdown there with
pro-Russian militants who have seized several official buildings, the
Russian news agency Interfax reported.
“Putin
emphasized that it was imperative today to withdraw all military units
from the southeastern regions, stop the violence and immediately launch a
broad national dialogue as part of the constitutional reform process
involving all regions and political forces,” Interfax said.
Russia
has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for escalating the situation and has
accused the government in Kiev of deploying 11,000 soldiers in the
region. The acting Ukrainian president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said
Wednesday that the security services had lost control of the region to armed separatists who have seized government buildings in about a dozen towns.
Ukraine
has said it sent soldiers to the east in response to maneuvers by
40,000 Russian troops deployed just over the border on what the Kremlin
has termed training exercises. Kiev has said any move by Russian troops
over the border will be treated as an invasion.
Ukraine Crisis in Maps
Christiane
Wirtz, a spokeswoman for the German chancellor, said Ms. Merkel had
urged Mr. Putin to intervene in the case of seven military monitors,
including four German soldiers, affiliated with the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe who are being held hostage by a separatist mayor in the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk.
“The
chancellor reminded President Putin of Russia’s responsibility as a
member of the O.S.C.E. and called on the president to use his
influence,” Ms. Wirtz said. The conversation was initiated by Ms.
Merkel, the Kremlin said. Both leaders reportedly agreed that the
57-nation O.S.C.E. should serve as mediator in the impasse over Ukraine.
In
a separate report from Interfax, the pro-Russian movement in Slovyansk
said that it had freed two of three captured members of the Ukrainian
security services in exchange for the release of an unspecified number
of its own activists. The report could not be immediately confirmed by
independent sources.
In a video posted online
earlier this week, the three men were shown beaten and bloodied. They
were filmed wearing nothing more than their shirts and underwear, with
blood oozing from behind the duct tape covering their eyes.
The separatists controlling City Hall in Slovyansk are holding an estimated 40 prisoners, including the elected mayor.
The
status of the elected mayor, Neli Shtepa, has been in dispute, with the
militants saying she is under their protection but free, and the
government in Kiev saying she is in custody. On Wednesday, the City
Council met behind closed doors to accept Ms. Shtepa’s resignation as
mayor, but said she would remain in the City Hall building.
Ms.
Shtepa, in a brief interview last month organized by the separatists,
said that the gunmen had detained her in the building, that she was
sleeping on a mattress on the floor of an office, and that she was not
free to leave.
Russia
and the separatists have denied that they are working together. Mr.
Putin has also said that there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine,
and denies that Moscow is driving the rebellion there. He made similar
claims during the annexation of Crimea, however, and then later acknowledged the existence of a Russian operation.
The
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued another statement on
Thursday condemning Ukraine for seeking to hold a national vote on May
25, including presidential elections and a referendum on
decentralization, while military operations continue in the east. Some
analysts believe that Russia is deliberately destabilizing the eastern
region via the separatists in order to undermine the attempt to elect a
legitimate government in Ukraine.
Details
of the conversation between Mr. Putin and Ms. Merkel emerged shortly
after Russian news agencies reported the start of what were described as
training maneuvers by a newly formed Russian attack helicopter unit
near the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. The deployment could crank
up tensions with NATO, which has stationed extra fighter jets to reassure jittery former Soviet republics that worry that the Kremlin has its eye on countries besides Ukraine.
Thursday
was May Day, and in Moscow tens of thousands gathered in Red Square to
mark the celebration of the working man. News announcers crowed that it
was the first time the celebration has been held in the square since the
Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, after which the Kremlin studiously kept
any activity with political overtones out of there. The day is still a
main event for labor unions and the Communist Party, which was a
strident opposition party for many years before lining up behind Mr.
Putin and his United Russia Party.
The
return to the square fit neatly with President Putin’s concerted
attempts to burnish the Soviet past, and the speakers and many marchers
lauded the annexation of Crimea in March. The bigger annual celebration,
with a thundering military parade and a speech by Mr. Putin, has been
moved to May 9, Victory Day, which this year marks the 69th anniversary
of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The
interim authorities in Kiev were also reported on Thursday to have
ordered the expulsion of a naval attaché at Moscow’s embassy after
accusing him of “activities incompatible with diplomatic status,” a term
that normally denotes espionage, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news
agency.
There was no immediate response from Russia to the Ukrainian move.
Interfax-Ukraine
quoted the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying in a
statement, “The military-naval attaché of the embassy of the Russian
Federation in Ukraine is declared persona non grata in connection with
his actions, which are not in accordance with his diplomatic status.”
The diplomat was not identified. The agency said he had been detained on Wednesday while involved in “intelligence activities.”
The
statement did not offer any detail about those activities or say
whether they were linked to the occupation of government facilities in
the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine, where the authorities have
acknowledged losing control.
The
expulsion of the Russian diplomat evoked the Cold War, as the West has
been expressing growing alarm over the advance of pro-Russian militants
in eastern Ukraine and seeks to reassure allies further afield.
In
Moscow, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti quoted Col. Oleg
Kochetkov, a spokesman for Russia’s Western Military District, as saying
that dozens of attack helicopters — identified as the Mi-28N Night
Hunter and the Ka-52 Alligator — supported by military transport
helicopters “have begun regular training flights in the skies over
northwestern Russia.”
The
report referred to NATO’s “ramping up its military presence in the
region,” and said, “Media in the former Soviet Baltic states, as well as
Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, have expressed security
concerns about Russia’s decision to station the 15th brigade near NATO’s
borders.”
Correction: May 1, 2014
An earlier version of this article misidentified the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany that takes place this year. It is the 69th anniversary, not the 70th.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany that takes place this year. It is the 69th anniversary, not the 70th.
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