As Ukraine talks resume, Putin and Poroshenko trade barbs

2014/9/1 14:42:21

Despite professing to want to work with Mr. Poroshenko, Mr. Putin adopted a much harder public stance against Ukraine beginning on Friday. On Sunday, he used an ambiguous reference to “statehood” for the southeast, intimating that the region might become independent, although his spokesman said the president meant autonomy within a unified Ukraine.

 


From New York Times: 1, September 2014

 

The presidents of Russia and Ukraine traded indirect barbs on Monday about the possibility of a peace settlement in the contested southeastern provinces of Ukraine, as mediators began a renewed effort to hammer out a deal.

 

President Vladimir V. Putin accused Kyiv of seeking to avoid talks that could lead to some degree of autonomy for southeastern Ukraine, and again defended the region’s separatists, who are widely considered to be proxies fighting for Moscow’s interests.

 

“The current Kyiv authorities don’t want to hold a substantive political dialogue with the east of their country,” Mr. Putin told the BBC during a visit to Siberia.

 

For the second time in three days, Mr. Putin endorsed the work of the militias fighting against the Ukrainian military. He said they were trying to push the military away from population centers in the east to prevent the shelling of residential districts. In addition, he accused European nations, among others, of ignoring the fact that Ukrainian government forces were shelling civilians.

 

For full text, Link below

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/europe/ukraine.html

 

photo courtesy of article source

 

 

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