Poroshenko, Putin to meet over Ukraine crisis
August 26, 2014, 4:56 am

Pro-Russian militia were forced to retreat from Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine, when Kiev’s military began making gains against the separatists and managed to recapture the city in early July [AP]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday that the meeting will include European Union representatives and that no direct bilateral talks have yet been scheduled.

European leaders and mediators, however, have cautioned not to expect substantial changes in Russian or Ukrainian policies during the meeting.

The meeting comes amid Kiev’s accusations that Moscow had sent a number of tanks and soldiers across the border into Mariupol in Eastern Ukraine to relieve besieged pro-Russian rebels there. Kiev says its forces destroyed two Russian tanks and captured what it says were 10 Russian soldiers.

Moscow said the captured men were pro-Russian rebels and not Russian military personnel.

Kiev in recent weeks stepped up its military campaign as it advanced against rebels who want an independent state. In the past week, it has pushed into Luhansk, a rebel-controlled city in the East, and continued to tighten its noose around Donetsk, considered the main rebel center.

Nearly 600,000 civilians have left their homes in Donetsk as fighting and shelling intensifies. The UN says that at least 2,000 people have been killed in the six-month conflict.

Second convoy

Meanwhile, Russia has told Ukrainian officials that it intends to dispatch a second aid convoy to the besieged city of Luhansk where nearly 250,000 people are running out of food, water and medicines.

On Friday, the first convoy of 200 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies reached the city after nearly a week’s delay as officials in Kiev warned that Moscow was using the convoy to arm the rebels.

While the US and EU called the convoy’s crossing of the border a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, Russia has warned that it will not allow further delays to disrupt its efforts to send aid supplies to Eastern Ukraine.

In a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday, Putin said: “Given the obvious protractions by Kiev on the issue of the delivery of Russian aid to southeast regions of Ukraine, which are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe, a decision was made on sending the convoy. Further delaying it would have been unacceptable.”

But Washington says such aid convoys constitute a “significant escalation” of the crisis.

On Monday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said that “Russia has no right to send vehicles or cargo into Ukraine without Govt of Ukraine’s permission”.

“Repeated Russian incursions into Ukraine unacceptable. Dangerous and inflammatory,” she said on her official Twitter account.

Source: Agencies