With Sharp Rebuke to Russia, Biden Offers Strong Support to Ukraine
New York Times-
Mr. Biden's remarks, made during a meeting with Ukraine's interim prime ... said, “No country should be allowed to behave like armed bandits” ...
| Ukraine orders new 'anti-terror' operation |
| Biden: Russia must 'stop talking and start acting' |
| Biden Warns Russia to Pull Back Forces From Ukraine Border--Update |
In-Depth-Forbes-
With Sharp Rebuke to Russia, Biden Offers Strong Support to Ukraine
KIEV,
Ukraine — Vowing that the United States would never recognize Russia’s
“illegal occupation” of Crimea last month, Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr. on Tuesday reiterated America’s support of Ukraine, declaring
that “no nation has the right to simply grab land from another” and
calling on Russia to stop supporting masked gunmen who have seized
government buildings across the east of the country.
Mr.
Biden’s remarks, made during a meeting with Ukraine’s interim prime
minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, signaled strong American backing for the
shaky new government in Kiev that Moscow does not recognize and condemns
as the illegitimate fruit of a putsch engineered by the West.
In
recent weeks, officials in Washington, including President Obama, have
issued a string of warnings to Russia threatening increasingly harsh
economic sanctions if the Kremlin does not help to de-escalate the
crisis in eastern Ukraine. But those seem to have gone largely unheeded.
Mr.
Biden’s stern words, accompanied by a pledge of a further $50 million
in American aid and help to break Ukraine’s dependency on Russian energy
supplies, underscored how little trust now exists between Washington
and Moscow, despite their joint role in brokering an international accord last Thursday in Geneva that sought, so far with little effect, to defuse the crisis.
Times Minute | Biden Wraps Up Kiev Visit
As Biden wraps up his visit to Ukraine
offering advice and aid, concerns over Russian intentions and what’s
next for the embattled country.
Credit Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Illustrating
the volatility of the standoff in eastern Ukraine, the country’s acting
president on Tuesday called for trying again to force the pro-Russian
militants from the buildings they are holding after a failed attempt
last week. In that effort, a column of 21 armored vehicles was
commandeered by pro-Russian forces with the aid, the West says, of
Russian special forces operatives.
“I
call on the security agencies to relaunch and carry out effective
anti-terrorist measures,” the acting president, Oleksander Turchinov,
said in a statement, “with the aim of protecting Ukrainian citizens
living in eastern Ukraine from terrorists.”
Mr.
Turchinov was reacting to a statement Tuesday by the self-proclaimed
mayor of Slovyansk, which said that one of the “brutally tortured”
bodies found in a river there this week was that of Volodymyr Rybak, a
government official from the nearby town of Gorlovka and a member of the
president’s own political party.
The
pro-Russian mayor, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, attributed the killings to
Right Sector, a Ukrainian ultranationalist group that many here blame
for violent attacks against ethnic Russians in the east, but he did not
offer any evidence to back his claim.
Mr. Ponomarev also announced that members of Slovyansk’s pro-Russia militia had detained Simon Ostrovsky,
an American video journalist from Vice News, and were holding him in
the captured headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Services in
Slovyansk.
In
an emailed statement, Vice said it “is aware of the situation and is in
contact with the United States State Department and other appropriate
government authorities to secure the safety and security of our friend
and colleague, Simon Ostrovsky.”
Mr.
Biden, echoing the view of Ukrainian authorities that the unrest in the
east has been instigated and, in some places, directly assisted by
Russian military and intelligence personnel, called on Russia “stop
supporting men in masks in unmarked uniforms,” the so-called “green men”
who have seized government buildings in at least 10 towns and cities.
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
“It’s
time for Russia to stop talking and start acting — act on the
commitments they made” in Geneva, Mr. Biden said, adding that Ukraine,
through an amnesty law and other steps, was trying to live up to its
side of the bargain.
Mr.
Yatsenyuk, also ratcheting up criticism of Moscow, said, “No country
should be allowed to behave like armed bandits” and called on the
Russians to stick to the commitments made in Geneva and “not behave as
gangsters in this modern century.”
Russia,
however, blames Kiev for the slim results of the Geneva agreement,
which called for the disarming of gunmen and the freeing of occupied
buildings. While Washington and Kiev focus on pro-Russian militants
holding buildings in the east, Moscow insists that the main reason for
the continuing unrest is the Kiev government’s failure to rein in
radical Ukrainian groups like Right Sector, which are still occupying
City Hall and the central post office in Kiev.
Since
the ouster in February of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president, Viktor F.
Yanukovych, Russia has repeatedly denounced Ukraine’s new leadership as
dominated by extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis who threaten not only
ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the east but Jews and other
minorities across the country. After meeting in Kiev with Ukrainian
leaders and members of the Jewish community, however, David Harris,
executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said on Tuesday
that “the government is committed in word and, we believe, in deed to
fighting xenophobia and anti-Semitism.”
Russian
allegations of anti-Semites on the rampage in Ukraine, Mr. Harris said
in an interview, were “a dangerous, Machiavellian game” that only
endangered Jews. “This is not the first time in history that the Jewish
community has been put in the middle of such a game,” he said.
On
Monday, just as Mr. Biden arrived in Kiev, Russia’s foreign minister,
Sergey V. Lavrov, accused the Ukrainian government of flagrantly
violating the Geneva deal and said it was doing nothing to stop
extremists, an accusation that was taken as a sign that Russia may be
further preparing the groundwork for a military intervention. Russia,
which has tens of thousands of soldiers massed on Ukraine’s eastern
border, has denied any intention of invading or having any hand in
stirring separatist unrest.
In
a statement to Ukraine’s Parliament after his meetings with
Mr.Yatsenyuk and the interim president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, Mr.
Biden spoke of the “humiliating threats” faced by Ukraine and said the
United States was “ready to assist.” But he also stressed that Ukraine
needed to put its own house in order, calling on it to “fight the cancer
of corruption that is endemic in your system right now” and to reduce
its crippling dependence on Russia for supplies of natural gas.
“Imagine
where you’d be today if you were able to tell Russia: Keep your gas. It
would be a very different world you’d be facing today,” Mr. Biden told
Ukrainian legislators. “It takes some difficult decisions, but it’s
collectively within your power and the power of Europe and the United
States. And we stand ready to assist you in reaching that.”
He
applauded Parliament for moving to change Ukraine’s Constitution to
devolve more power to its diverse regions, including the mainly
Russian-speaking east.
In
an effort to calm pro-Russian separatists, the government in Kiev has
promised to grant more autonomy to local authorities to run their own
affairs. It has also begun preparing an amnesty law to cover pro-Russian
militants who voluntarily give up their weapons and vacate seized
buildings.
But
Kiev has balked at Russian demands for so-called “federalization,” a
wholesale reworking of Ukraine’s state structure, viewing as a ruse to
divide the country and place big chunks of territory in the south and
east, an area that President Vladimir V. Putin last week called “New
Russia,” under Moscow’s control.
Speaking
in Moscow on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia was
quoted as saying in Parliament that Russia could minimize the impact of
any sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis and would insist on fair
access to foreign markets for its energy exports.
“We
will not give up on cooperation with foreign companies, including from
Western countries, but we will be ready for unfriendly steps,” Mr.
Medvedev said.
“I
am sure we can minimize their impact,” he said in a clear reference to
sanctions. “We will not allow our citizens to become hostages of
political games.”
No comments:
Post a Comment