Ukraine crisis? US, Russia hold direct talks over coffee

Paris: As the diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine gathers pace, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday held discussions on Ukraine in Paris. 

The talks were held on the sidelines of an international meeting on Lebanon. 

According to a US State Department official, Kerry and Lavrov held informal discussions along with their British, French and German counterparts over coffee after lunch at the French presidential palace, the AFP reported. 

This was the first meeting between Russia's FM Lavrov and US diplomat Kerry after the develpments in Ukraine have taken the world by surprise and concern. 

The Crimean peninsula in Ukraine has seen the build-up of forces which President Vladimir Putin said, were not Russian slodiers, but pro-Moscow local forces of self defence. 

Though, US has earlier claimed that Crimea was in full control of Russia, Moscow has denied such claims saying it has no control over the Black Sea Peninsula. 

Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Tuesday tried to present a sturdy justification over his moves in Ukraine claiming that he had no intention to go to war. 

However he asserted that Russia reserved the right to protect Russians in Ukraine by “all means” and it would be legitimate.  

Reacting to Putin's statement, US Secretary of State John Kerry who arrived in Kiev on Tuesday said that Moscow was trying to stitch up excuses to invade further than Crimea.  

 Kerry said that there were no signs that Russian-speakers in Ukraine were in any sort of danger or threat after Kiev saw new leaders taking up the reins.  

Earlier speaking in Madrid, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, told a press conference that Russia will not allow bloodshed in Ukraine.

Ukraine crisis live updates: Pro-Russia protesters occupy govt building in Donetsk

5.19 pm: Pro-Russia protesters occupy regional govt in Donetsk

DONETSK: Pro-Russian demonstrators occupied the first floor of the regional government building in east Ukraine's city of Donetsk on Monday.
A Reuters reporter in a press centre on the fourth floor of the building said the protesters had seized the first floor but were unable to go higher because lifts were disabled and stairwell doors shut.
The 11-storey building has been flying the Russian flag, rather than the Ukrainian flag, for three days, with demonstrators carrying Russian flags staging rallies outside. - Reuters

5.05 pm: EU to urge mediation with Russia over Ukraine

BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers will push on Monday for high-level mediation to resolve the crisis over Russia's invasion of Crimea, while threatening the possibility of sanctions if Russia does not back down.
In emergency talks convened after Russian President Vladimir Putin seized the Crimean peninsula and said he had the right to invade Ukraine, ministers will try to strike a balance between pressure on Moscow and finding a way to calm the situation.
Germany, France and Britain, the EU's most-powerful nations, are all advocating mediation to resolve the crisis, possibly via the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, while not ruling out economic measures if Moscow does not cooperate.
"Crisis diplomacy is not a weakness but it will be more important than ever to not fall into the abyss of military escalation," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters as he arrived for the talks in Brussels. - Reuters
 

A Ukrainian woman looks at military personnel, believed to be Russian servicemen, standing outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol on March 3, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

5 pm: Ukraine increases Russian gas imports, braces for price hike
KIEV/LONDON: Ukraine has increased gas imports from Russiaover the last few days, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly said on Monday, amid warnings that state gas producer Gazprom might scrap a discount on prices.
As concerns grow over gas supplies after Russian President Vladimir Putin won parliamentary approval to invade Ukraine, analysts say Kiev is trying to import as much gas as possible at the lower prices.
Moscow, enraged with Ukraine's new pro-EU government, has warned Kiev it could lose the discount it currently gets from Gazprom due to Kiev's outstanding gas debt.
"We doubled our gas imports from Russia. We imported 45 million cubic metres of gas on March 1, 2014, compared with 20 million on March 1, 2013," said Maxim Belyavsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly Ukrtransgas.
Ukraine is a major buyer of gas from Gazprom, which exported almost 26 bcm of gas to its neighbour last year, more than half of the 50.4 bcm it consumed. - Reuters

4.53 pm: Russian fighter jets violated Ukraine's air space, says ministry

KIEV: Russian fighter jets twice violated Ukraine's air space over the Black Sea during the night, Interfax news agency quoted the Defence Ministry as saying on Monday.
It said Ukraine's air force had scrambled a Sukhoi SU-27 interceptor aircraft and prevented any "provocative actions" but gave no further details. - Reuters

4.50 pm: Still not too late for peaceful solution in Ukraine, says Merkel aide
BERLIN: Germany's Angela Merkel believes it is not too late to resolve the Ukrainian crisis by political means despite differences in opinion betweenVladimir Putin and the West on Crimea, which Russia now controls, an aide to the chancellor said on Monday.
Merkel has proposed to the Russian president Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama sending a "fact-finding mission" to the Ukrainian region of Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea where Russian forces have seized control without any fighting.
"It is still not to late to resolve this crisis peacefully by political means," said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, urging Moscow to withdraw "from the logic of troop movements".
"There is no doubt President Putin has a completely different view on the situation and events in Crimea from the German government and our Western partners," he said. - Reuters

A pro-Russian soldier stands by a billboard with a map of Crimea and bearing the words Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the port of Kerch in Ukraine on March 3, 2014. AP/Darko Vojinovic

4.45 pm: UN Chief Will Urge Russia To De-Escalate Ukraine Crisis

Geneva: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday that he would ask Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia refrain from any acts or rhetoric that would further escalate the crisis in Ukraine and instead seek dialogue with authorities in Kiev.

Ban said that his deputy Jan Eliasson, who had just arrived in Kiev, would "convey the same message to Ukrainian authorities".
"It is now of utmost importance to restore calm and to de-escalate tensions immediately through dialogue," Ban told a news conference in Geneva shortly before holding talks with Lavrov.

"I will urge that the Russian Federation refrain from any acts and rhetoric that could further escalate the situation and instead to engage constructively and through peaceful means with Ukraine." -Reuters

4.30 pm: Russian Foreign Minister Tells West To Put Ukrainian People First

Moscow: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday rejected accusations that Russia is acting aggressively toward Ukraine and accused the West of putting its own "geopolitical calculations" ahead of the fate of the people in the former Soviet republic.
At a U.N. human rights meeting in Geneva, Lavrov tried to turn the tables following a hail of Western criticism after President Vladimir Putin secured permission from lawmakers to send the military into Ukraine.

"We call for a responsible approach, to put aside geopolitical calculations, and above all to put the interests of the Ukrainian people first," he said on a live feed broadcast to Moscow.

While the Kremlin says Putin has not decided to send troops into Ukraine, Western states say Russian forces have already taken control of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with a Russian majority. -Reuters

Seven Reasons Putin Won't Give Up Ukraine

Bloomberg’s Henry Meyer has an extraordinary article today about the dwindling options available to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose Sochi Olympic moment has been overshadowed by the bloody mess in neighboring Ukraine.

But as much as the situation seems to be slipping out of control, it’s hard to imagine that Putin will just walk away and leave Ukraine to its own devices. Here are seven reasons why:

Pride: Putin said in 2005 that the fall of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. From that perspective, to allow Ukraine to slip out of Russia’s orbit would make Putin no better than Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the Soviet empire’s dissolution in 1991.

STORY: Behind a Pattern of Global Unrest, a Middle Class in Revolt

Trade: Putin wants Ukraine to join Russia’s fledgling customs union with Belarus, Kazakhstan, and soon, Armenia. The customs union is his answer to the European Union’s much larger trading bloc. Indeed, the current protests broke out after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin ally, pivoted away from a European Union integration accord last November and chose Russia instead.

History: Russia and Ukraine have deep historical links dating back to the Kievan Rus, whose glory days were the 11th and 12th centuries. According to Russiapedia, the Kievan Rus “is traditionally seen as the beginning of Russia and the ancestor of Belarus and Ukraine.”

Statehood: In 2008, the Russian business daily Kommersant cited a source in a NATO country’s delegation who quoted Putin as telling President George W. Bush: “You understand, George, that Ukraine isn’t even a state.” For most of the 900 years preceding independence in 1991, it wasn’t. Parts of what’s now Ukraine were controlled by Poland, Lithuania, the Khanate of Crimea, Austria Hungary, Germany, and of course Russia. In 2009 Putin approvingly quoted a description of Ukraine as “little Russia.” If Putin doesn’t perceive Ukraine as a real state, he’s less likely to respect its independence.

VIDEO: Will Sochi Games Mark Putin’s Defeat of Europe?

Crimea: Crimea, the southern part of Ukraine on the Black Sea, was part of Russia until 1954, when it was given to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, supposedly to strengthen brotherly ties, even though it had a majority-Russian population. Historians still aren’t sure why Russia gave away Crimea, but Putin isn’t likely to let that gift get too far away.

The Navy: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is headquartered in the Crimean city of Sevastopol (which is less than 200 miles northwest of Sochi). If an unfriendly Ukrainian government ended the lease, Russia would be forced to move its headquarters east to Novorossiysk. In December, Russia dangled an offer of cheaper natural gas to Ukraine in exchange for better terms on its lease in Sevastopol.

Energy: Natural gas sales to Europe are a key source of foreign exchange for Russia, and a big share of that gas passes through Ukraine. It wants to keep those pipelines in friendly hands. But Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP:RM) is also hedging its bets by building a new South Stream pipeline that crosses the Black Sea on the seabed from Russia to Bulgaria, bypassing Ukraine.

STORY: Ukraine’s Protesters May Soon Gain Power—and Regret It

Josef Stalin brutally subjugated Ukraine in the 1930s, liquidating the wealthy farmers known as kulaks. Putin is no Stalin, but no one should assume that he will let Ukraine go without a struggle.

STORY: Russia's 21st Century Malaise in Five Grim Charts

50 dead as Kiev clashes renew

Ukrne’s ombudsperson Valeria Lutkovskaya said about 50 people "or more" had died in the capital and hundreds had been wounded.ai

Bloody clashes flared again between armed radicals and police in Kiev hours after the warring sides negotiated a truce.

Rioters attacked police with rocks and Molotov cocktails on Thursday pushing them back several hundred metres to positions the protesters held before security forces went into offensive a day earlier.

The death toll, which stood at 28 dead on Wednesday, appears to have doubled on Thursday. Ukraine’s ombudsperson Valeria Lutkovskaya said about 50 people “or more” had died in the capital and hundreds had been wounded.

Ahead of the arrival of a high-powered delegation of the European Union in Kiev Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych at an overnight meeting with opposition leaders agreed to their demand to declare a ceasefire.

However, the Right Sector, an umbrella organisation for extreme nationalist groups who have been battling the police, rejected the agreement.

“Somebody up there would wish to stop people’s uprising by declaring a false truce,” the group’s leader Dmitro Yarosh wrote on Facebook. “The Right Sector has not signed any agreement with anyone; therefore the offensive by the people in revolt must go on.”

Police said 10 officers had died from gunshot wounds in two days of fighting. More than a hundred security personnel were wounded and 67 taken prisoner by radicals. Protesters in turn accused security forces of using life ammunition.

Radicals stormed and seized a military base in Western Ukraine and set on fire its ammunition arsenal.

Ukraine's acting Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharschenko said he had given orders to arm police with “combat weapons” to protect citizens and property from attacks and for self-defence.

Mr Yanukovych’s press service said the protesters had used the truce to regroup and bring more weapons to Kiev.

Foreign Ministers of German, France and Poland, who arrived in Kiev on Thursday, conferred with Ukraine’s opposition leaders before meeting Mr Yanukovych. Some reports said the ministers were pressing Mr Yanukovych to agree to early elections.

Meanwhile, Russia voiced frustration with Mr Yanukovych’s indecisiveness in curbing the violence.

Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Ukrainian authorities must “get their act together and protect people and law enforcement structures,” before Moscow resumes financial aid Ukraine.

“We need partners who are in good shape, legitimate and effective, so that people don't wipe their feet on the authorities like a doormat,” Mr Medvedev said at a cabinet meeting in Moscow on Thursday.