NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia is sending troops and heavy weapons into Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin heads to a G20 summit in Australia which is overshadowed by the crisis.
“We have observed in the past days that Russia has again brought arms, equipment, artillery, tanks and rockets over the border into Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Ukraine is threatened with a return to open warfare, as seen before the Sept. 5 truce that is being violated on an almost daily basis. More than 4,000 people have died in fighting, according to UN estimates. It is the worst standoff between Russia and its former Cold War foes since the Iron Curtain fell 25 years ago.
Photo: AFP
“President Putin has clearly broken the truce agreement and has violated Ukraine’s integrity,” Stoltenberg said, according to Bild.
Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, has repeatedly denied that it is sending its armed forces into Ukraine or aiding the separatists.
British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday said that sanctions on Russia might be expanded if the situation in Ukraine worsens, ahead of the start of the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane that starts today.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said the weapons deliveries to Ukraine were “worrying developments.”
Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in response to questions that it is possible Merkel would meet alone with Putin at the G20.
There were 50 violations of the ceasefire in easternmost Ukraine over the past 24 hours and six government soldiers were wounded, the National Security and Defense Council said in a statement on Facebook.
Four residential buildings were damaged by firing in Donetsk, the city council said on its Web site.
Putin has “neoimperialist ambitions,” Estonian Minister of Defense Sven Mikser said in a Sueddeutsche Zeitung interview.
NATO needs “policy of strength” toward Russia as “weakness is much more provoking than strength when one deals with a regime like Putin’s,” Mikser said according to the Munich-based newspaper.
While EU governments are discussing new measures to punish Russia, they would limit any near-term moves to asset freezes and travel bans on additional Ukrainian separatists, according to EU officials and a planning document.
EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Representative Federica Mogherini said a meeting of national ministers on Monday would consider the blacklisting while putting off a discussion of tougher economic measures until next month’s summit of leaders.
An “eventual discussion” of economic restrictions is for EU heads of government, she said in a letter to foreign ministers obtained by Bloomberg News.
Expanding EU sanctions is difficult as they require unanimity among the 28 member-state governments, reducing the prospects of new decisions on Monday at the first foreign ministers’ meeting led by Mogherini.
The ministers could set in motion a decision to expand the 119-name blacklist later next week, an EU official told reporters.
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