A group of eight European military observers detained by pro-Russia insurgents in Ukraine has appeared in public and given assurances that they are not being mistreated.
Axel Schneider from Germany, who spoke for the group yesterday, denied they were spying for NATO, as the pro-Russia insurgents claim.
The observers were traveling under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) when they were detained on Friday in eastern Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, the pro-Russia insurgents yesterday captured three Ukrainian security service officers and displayed them to journalists bloodied and blindfolded with packing tape.
The insurgents in the city of Slovyansk have increasingly turned to hostage-taking as they seek to cement their control in the east of the country.
Ukraine’s Security Service confirmed that its officers had been seized by armed men. The officers were on a mission to detain a Russian citizen suspected in the killing of a Ukrainian parliament member, the agency said in a statement.
Stripped of their trousers and shoes, the captive officers sat with heads bowed in the security service headquarters in Slovyansk early yesterday.
Igor Strelkov, who has been identified as the commander of the armed insurgents, said the three Ukrainian officers were on a mission to seize leaders of the pro-Russia force when they were captured.
The self-proclaimed mayor of Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, accused the OSCE team of being NATO spies.
“As we found maps on them containing information about the location of our checkpoints, we get the impression that they are officers carrying out a certain spying mission,” Ponomarev said on Saturday, adding they could be released in exchange for jailed pro-Russian activists.
Ponomaryov said yesterday afternoon that he was heading into talks with mediators from the OSCE who are seeking the release of the detained observers.
Outside Slovyansk, a city about 150km west of Russia, Ukraine government forces continued operations to form a security cordon as it attempts to quell unrest threatening to derail the planned May 25 presidential election.
The US and other nations in the G7 said in a joint statement released on Friday night by the White House that they plan to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine.
The West has accused Russia of using covert forces to encourage unrest in Ukraine and says Moscow has done nothing to pressure pro-Russian militias to free police stations and government buildings in at least 10 cities across the region.
Condemning Russia’s earlier annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the G7 said: “We will now follow through on the full legal and practical consequences of this illegal annexation, including, but not limited to, the economic, trade and financial areas.”
US Vice President Joe Biden tried to keep building support for sanctions during telephone calls on Saturday to the prime ministers of Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The EU is also planning more sanctions, and ambassadors from the bloc’s 28 member nations will meet today in Brussels to add to the list of Russian officials and pro-Russian leaders in Ukraine that have been sanctioned with asset freezes and a travel ban.
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov late on Friday to press for the release of the observers.
In a statement released on Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was taking “all measures to resolve the situation,” but accused the authorities in Kiev of failing to secure the safety of the team.
“The security of the inspectors is wholly entrusted to the host party,” the statement said. “Hence it would be logical to expect the current authorities in Kiev to resolve preliminary questions of the location, actions and safety of the instructors.”
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey said he told his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, in a telephone conversation last week that the observers could help stabilize the situation in Ukraine.
“We’ve got observers from the OSCE, some of whom have been denied access by pro-Russian groups and I suggested to him that one way we could contribute to some kind of stable outcome would be if he on his side and me on my side could seek to get those observers in there so that we could have a neutral party tell us what’s going on,” Dempsey said, following a military symposium in Dallas, Texas.
Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said in an interview on Saturday that she welcomed further sanctions against Russia and called for NATO membership for Ukraine to protect itself from Russian aggression.
Tymoshenko, who is running in the May 25 presidential election, said that while only a minority of Ukrainians supported NATO membership previously, Russia’s aggressive actions in the country’s east had forced a “fundamental change” in public thinking.
Her tough talk underscores the increasingly tense relationship between Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks — Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Friday that Russia “is keen to start World War III.”
On Saturday, Yatsenyuk traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Francis gave Yatsenyuk a fountain pen, telling him: “I hope that you write ‘peace’ with this pen.”
Yatsenyuk replied: “I hope so, too.”
In a briefing with reporters, he lashed out at Moscow, saying Russian military aircraft violated Ukrainian air space late on Friday.
“The only reason is to provoke Ukraine to strike a missile and to accuse Ukraine of waging a war to Russia,” he said, and asked Russia “not to provoke and not to support Russian-led terrorists ... in eastern and southern Ukraine. We ask Russia to leave us alone.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense denied claims, first raised by the US on Friday, that its aircraft had crossed the border with Ukraine, a spokesman told state news agencies on Saturday.
The streets of Slovyansk were relatively calm on Saturday. Hundreds of mourners, including Ponomarev, went to a local church to pay respects to a pro-Russian insurgent apparently killed during a clash with Ukrainian government troops earlier in the week.
Additional reporting by Reuters
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS