Putin moves to scrap option to invade Ukraine
Putin moves to scrap option to invade Ukraine
By Max Delany with Dmitry Zaks in Kiev
6 hours ago
Associated Press Videos
Rebels Agree to Abide by Cease-fire in Ukraine
Moscow (AFP) - Russian
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday asked lawmakers to revoke a
resolution allowing him to invade Ukraine in a shock turnabout that Kiev
hailed as his "first practical step" towards helping defuse the crisis.
The surprise
reversal from the Kremlin strongman comes amid the threat of tougher
Western sanctions against Moscow and could help spur fragile peace
initiatives to end fighting in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels
agreed Monday to a temporary government ceasefire.
Putin's
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision to reverse the March 1 vote
giving Putin carte blanche to send troops into Ukraine was aimed at
"normalising the atmosphere and resolving the situation" where over 370
people have been killed since April.
In
a rare sign of agreement Ukraine's Western-backed President Petro
Poroshenko welcomed the announcement as "the first practical step taken
by the Russian president in the wake of his decision to officially
support Ukraine's settlement plan for the (eastern) Donbass region."
Senators
in Russia's rubber-stamp legislative body will vote Wednesday to
rescind the decision which saw troops massed along the border in what
was seen as a threat of intervention.
German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists after meeting
Poroshenko in Kiev that "appropriate signals" were needed from all
sides and that both rebels and the Ukrainian army had to stick to the
ceasefire.
On the ground in eastern Ukraine fighting still bubbled away --
albeit at a lower intensity -- with Poroshenko saying that one
serviceman was killed as insurgent attacks continued overnight.
That came despite a prominent rebel leader on Monday reversing his firm rejection of Kiev's peace overtures by agreeing to a ceasefire and suggesting talks with the authorities.
"We
hope that during the period in which both sides halt fire, we will be
able to agree and begin consultations about holding negotiations about a
peaceful settlement to the conflict," Alexander Borodai, prime minister
of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic said in a broadcast by
Russian television.
- New sanctions threat -Poroshenko has been lobbying world leaders to follow through with their threat to unleash devastating economic sanctions against Russia should Putin fail to immediately end his perceived military and diplomatic backing of the insurgents.
Putin's volte-face came
shortly ahead of a visit to Vienna Tuesday where he was expected to face
renewed pressure from his counterpart Heinz Fischer and Switzerland's
Didier Burkhalter -- the current head of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
While
in the Austrian capital Putin oversaw a deal between state energy giant
Gazprom and Austria's OMV approving a section of a Kremlin-backed
pipeline project to Europe that has become the focus of new pressure as
tensions have grown over Ukraine.
Putin's
reversal follows a conversation with US President Barack Obama Monday
evening, the first since the beginning of the month, in which Obama
threatened Putin with new sanctions if Moscow failed to stop the flow of
weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine's president will sign a historic EU
trade pact on Friday that crowns his May 25 election promise to make the
decisive move westward -- one strongly resisted by Russia and that lies
at the heart of the current unrest.Poroshenko's office said he told US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday night that the rebels' ceasefire "must be accompanied by the release of hostages and a sealing of the border to halt the entry into Ukraine from Russia of mercenaries, weapons and drugs."
"Poroshenko stressed that now, Russia must demonstrate real steps forward," his office said in a statement.
The European Union warned after a meeting of foreign ministers Monday that it expected to see action from Putin "within days."
Some
analysts believe that Putin is still smarting from the sudden loss of
an ally in Kiev -- ousted by pro-EU protesters in February -- who could
have brought Ukraine into a new alliance of post-Soviet nations being
assembled by the Kremlin.
The
subsequent flow of heavy weapons and gunmen across the porous border
into eastern Ukraine seem to indicate that the Kremlin is -- at the very
least -- turning a blind eye to local Russian officials and military
commanders' efforts to support the insurgents.
But
the Kremlin chief seems equally determined to avoid steps that could
trigger broader sanctions and deal a further blow to a Russian economy
that is already teetering on the edge of a recession.
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