Ukraine’s prime minister resigned after his governing coalition collapsed, plunging the former Soviet state into political limbo as it struggles to quell a deadly rebellion in the east.
The shock announcement on Thursday added to an already chaotic situation in the rebel-controlled east, where international experts are carrying out a complex investigation into last week’s downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that left 298 dead.
And the gravity of the situation facing the country was underscored by allegations from Washington that the US has evidence Russian troops are firing artillery on Ukrainian military positions from Russian soil.
Photo: EPA
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he was stepping down over the “dissolution of the parliamentary coalition and the blocking of government initiatives” after several parties walked out on the ruling group.
The collapse of the ruling coalition paves the way for early elections to be called by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko within 30 days.
Although a truce has been declared by both rebels and government forces in the immediate vicinity of the vast crash site, heavy shelling was ongoing nearby, including around Donetsk, just 60km from the scene.
Photo: Reuters
Ukraine’s army reported four soldiers killed over the last 24 hours in its offensive to retake the eastern industrial heartland from pro-Russian insurgents.
Countries that lost 298 citizens in the disaster are looking to deploy armed police to secure the impact zone, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announcing the Netherlands was sending 40 unarmed police to the crash site.
“On the site it is still clear that nothing is happening without the approval of the armed rebels who brought the plane down in the first place,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country lost 28 citizens in the crash.
“There has still not been anything like a thorough professional search of the area where the plane went down, and there can’t be while the site is controlled by armed men with vested interest in the outcome of the investigation,” he said.
Abbott has placed 50 Australian officers on stand-by in London.
The Ukrainian military said rockets were being fired on Thursday “from the Russian side,” hitting locations close to Lugansk airport and in several areas in the Donetsk region.
Mortar shells also rained down on Avdiyika in the Donetsk region, the army said, without giving details of casualties.
Kiev said two fighter jets that were downed on Wednesday were hit by missiles launched from Russian territory, and that while the pilots ejected safely, there was no information about their whereabouts.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross warned both sides to abide by the Geneva Conventions, declaring that it considered Ukraine to be in a state of civil war.
In Washington, US Department of State spokeswoman Marie Harf warned that Moscow was planning to deliver “heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers” to the pro-Russian separatist forces in Ukraine.
“They’re firing artillery from within Russia to attack Ukrainian military,” Harf told reporters.
The EU, which accuses Russia of fanning the rebellion in Ukraine’s east by arming the separatists, will add 15 Ukrainian and Russian individuals and 18 entities to its sanctions list, a source from the bloc said.
The move came just a week after the EU unveiled a round of toughened embargoes against Moscow, which is widely expected to sink into recession this year.
In the debate over more sanctions, Britain ruffled feathers in neighboring France over its push for an EU arms embargo, as Paris is keen to go ahead with its sale of two warships to Russia.
On Thursday, Poroshenko said he was “very disappointed” at France’s insistence on the deal, saying: “It’s not a question of money, industry or jobs. It’s a question of values.”
FEELING THREATENED: The first military commission under Kim Jong-un’s leadership to last longer than a day is a sign of a growing escalatory doctrine, an analyst said North Korea discussed assigning additional duties to its frontline army units at a key military meeting, state media said yesterday, suggesting that the country might deploy battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea along the rivals’ tense border. The discussion comes as South Korean officials said North Korea has finished preparations for its first nuclear test in five years, as part of possible efforts to build a warhead to be mounted on short-range weapons capable of hitting targets in South Korea. During an ongoing meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and
TRADE TALK: Xiao Qian said that Australia had fired the ‘first shot’ in deteriorating trade relations with China, but improvements were possible if Canberra takes action China’s new ambassador to Australia chided protesters who heckled him yesterday during a speech about the future of relations between the two countries. Xiao Qian (肖千), who has only been in the role since January, had just begun his speech at the University of Technology Sydney when the first protesters interjected, calling for freedom for Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. The ambassador was repeatedly interrupted by sign-wielding protesters, some criticizing China’s treatment of the Uighur people as well as the university for inviting Xiao to speak. “People who are coming again and again to interrupt the process, that’s not expression of freedom of
A former South Korean Navy SEAL turned YouTuber who risked jail time to leave Seoul and fight for Ukraine said it would have been a “crime” not to use his skills to help. Ken Rhee, a former special warfare officer, signed up at the Ukrainian embassy in Seoul the moment Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked for global volunteers and was fighting on the front lines near Kyiv by early March. To get there, he had to break South Korean law — Seoul banned its citizens from traveling to Ukraine, and Rhee, who was injured in a fall while leading a special operations
Indonesian President and G20 Chairman Joko Widodo yesterday set off to Europe where he said he plans to visit Russia and Ukraine and meet with the countries’ leaders to urge peace talks. Widodo departed for Germany to attend the G7 summit as a guest yesterday and today, after which he plans to go to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The mission is to ask ... President Zelenskiy to open a dialogue forum for peace, to build peace because the war has to be stopped,” Widodo told a news conference in Jakarta. The two leaders would also discuss the