New Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the violence that has rocked the former Soviet republic’s easternmost regions must end this week as peace talks began involving an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Poroshenko, who took the oath of office on Sunday, said negotiations should be held daily. Sunday’s three-way talks in Kiev included Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Pavlo Klimkin, Russian envoy to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and Heidi Tagliavini, a special representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
“We must stop the violence this week,” Poroshenko said on his Web site. “Every day when people die, every day when Ukraine pays such a high price is unacceptable.”
Poroshenko, who was sworn in a day after discussing proposals toward a ceasefire with Putin, used his inauguration speech to present a plan to bring peace after more than six months of unrest that has pitted the US and Europe against Russia in the worst standoff since the Cold War.
After his May 25 election victory, the 48-year-old billionaire’s ability to repair relations with Russia will be key to success in pacifying the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where the military is battling a separatist insurgency.
Talks between Russia’s gas export monopoly, OAO Gazprom, and Ukraine’s state-run NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy on resolving a dispute over prices and money owed for past supplies were to take place in Brussels yesterday morning, Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said by telephone.
Russia has set a deadline of today for Ukraine to start pre-paying for gas.
Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper reported that Ukraine would pay US$1 billion in arrears yesterday for gas supplied in November and December of last year.
Meanwhile, unrest continued in eastern Ukraine. Militants attacked a military building in Torez, 70km east of Donetsk, and two people died from gas inhalation after a fire broke out, the local Ostrov news service reported late on Sunday.
Poroshenko reiterated on Sunday that Ukraine must restore functioning borders after fighters crossed from Russia.
The step is needed to guarantee the security of citizens in the east “regardless of their political views,” he said.
“There’s a window for peace now, but it won’t stay indefinitely,” US Vice President Joe Biden said at a meeting with Poroshenko in Kiev on Sunday. “We look for Mr Putin to meet his end of the commitments and deliver on the pledge to actually work with your government.”
In related developments, Ukrainian security forces have released two Russian television journalists working for a defense ministry outlet after they were detained at a checkpoint in the east of the country, the channel said yesterday.
The journalists from Russia’s Zvezda, or Star channel — sound operator Anton Malyshev and cameraman Andrei Sushenkov — were arrested on Friday last week by Ukraine’s National Guard “on suspicion of monitoring and collecting information” of government operations close to Slavyansk.
Additional reporting by AFP
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