German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Russia and Ukraine to reduce tensions over Crimea, amid what he said was contradictory evidence from the two countries of an alleged attack on the peninsula.
Germany is concerned about worsening security in Crimea and all sides “must refrain from anything that may lead to a further deterioration of the situation,” Steinmeier told reporters after talks with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov in Yekaterinburg yesterday.
There is still “no full clarity” about what happened “and we’re waiting for the results of investigations by the Russian and Ukrainian sides,” he said.
There is no need at this point for the “extreme measure” of breaking off diplomatic relations with Ukraine, Lavrov said.
It is important to stabilize the situation and “not give in to emotions,” though Russia is ready to provide “irrefutable evidence” that Ukraine planned attacks in Crimea to destabilize the peninsula, he said.
The talks took place after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened a “very serious” response last week when he accused Ukrainian agents of killing two Russian servicemen in Crimea, triggering the worst diplomatic standoff between the countries since last year’s Minsk truce deal eased hostilities in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Russia bolstered its military forces in Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
The EU said that there had been no independent confirmation of the killings.
Russia deployed S-400 Triumph air defense systems in Crimea, the Moscow-based RIA Novosti news service reported on Friday. Putin discussed bolstering Crimea’s defenses with his Security Council on Thursday.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who spoke with US Vice President Joe Biden on Friday, has dismissed Russia’s accusations as “fiction” that could be an “excuse for further military threats” against his country.
He put the military on alert along the contact line with separatist forces and the frontier with the Black Sea territory, where Ukrainian military officials say Russian troops are reinforcing their positions.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said last week that diplomatic ties with Ukraine might be cut after what he said was a Ukrainian incursion into Crimea, which he called a crime that needs to be investigated, the Interfax news service reported.
The Crimean crisis erupted as efforts to resolve the conflict between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have become stalled, Steinmeier said.
The Minsk accords remain in effect and still provide the best way to achieve peace, he said, amid a surge in violence in the area.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS