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Ukraine, Russia Talks End, With 'Certain Progress' Reported

October 17, 2014
by RFE/RL

The Ukrainian and Russia presidents have ended a bilateral meeting in Milan, with somewhat contradictory versions of the talks' outcome.

The 45-minute talks, held behind closed doors on the sidelines of a Europe-Asia summit on October 17, came after Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin met earlier with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Poroshenko says no practical results on resolving on a dispute over gas supplies from Russia had been achieved.

"We do have certain progress, but some details are yet to be discussed,' Poroshenko said.

However, Putin said the sides agreed on the terms of gas supplies 'at least for the winter period.'

He also expressed hope that Ukraine's Western partners would help the country overcome its cash deficit.

Russia has stopped gas deliveries to Ukraine and demands that Kyiv pays billions of dollars in arrears.

After a first round of talks in Milan, Merkel said there was 'no breakthrough yet' on the Ukrainian crisis, amid continued fighting in the country's east between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists.

The Kremlin accused Western officials of inflexibility in the 'difficult' talks.

Putin, in the spotlight and under pressure from the West to do more to bring peace to Ukraine, said the earlier meeting -- attended by Putin, Poroshenko, and Merkel, as well as French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and outgoing EU leaders Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso -- had been 'good, positive.'

Over 3,000 Deaths

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said some participants displayed 'a complete lack of desire to take an objective approach' to the Ukraine crisis, which Russia blames on the European Union, the United States, and the pro-Western government that gained power in Ukraine after the ouster of a president sympathetic to Russia, Viktor Yanukovych, in February.

Kyiv, NATO, and Western governments say Russia has supported the rebels with troops, weaponry, and propaganda after illegally annexing the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in March.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 3,660 combatants and civilians since April and driven Moscow's ties with the West to post-Cold War lows, prompting punitive sanctions against Moscow and a Russian ban on many foods from the EU, its biggest trading partner for years.

The breakfast-table talks came hours after a lengthy Putin-Merkel meeting on October 16 that stretched past midnight and failed to resolve what the Kremlin said were 'serious differences of opinion about the genesis of the internal Ukrainian conflict as well as about the causes of what is happening there now.'

Western leaders have rejected Russia's denials of involvement and said Moscow must see to it that a cease-fire and steps toward peace agreed on September 5 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, are implemented.

'It is obviously above all Russia's task to make clear that the Minsk plan is adhered to,' Merkel told reporters on October 16. 'Unfortunately, there are still a lot of shortcomings, but it will be important to look for a dialogue here.'

Cameron said Putin assured the other leaders at the breakfast that Russia does not want a divided Ukraine or a 'frozen conflict.'

'But if that's the case, then Russia now needs to take the actions to put in place all that has been agreed: Getting Russian troops out of Ukraine, getting heavy weapons out of Ukraine, and respecting all the agreements and only recognizing one legitimate set of Ukrainian elections,' Cameron said, adding that 'if those things don't happen, then clearly the European Union, Britain included, must keep in place the sanctions and the pressure so that we don't have this sort of conflict in our continent.'

Serbia Visit

Kremlin critics say Russia has supported the cease-fire and plans for peace because the September 5 agreement followed rebel gains that left the separatists in control over large portions of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, giving Moscow a lever to influence its France-sized neighbor and keep it destabilized -- and out of NATO -- for years to come.

Putin, who basked in attention at a military parade in mostly Slavic, Orthodox Christian Serbia on October 16, set the stage for tense talks in Milan by warning in Belgrade that a dispute with Kyiv over natural gas could jeopardize Russian supplies to Europe via transit nation Ukraine this winter.

He said Europe faces 'major transit risks' to gas supplies from Russia.

Blaming Kyiv in advance for any possible cuts in supplies to Europe, Putin said that if Ukraine siphons gas from transit pipelines to the European Union, Russia will reduce supplies in the amount of the 'stolen' gas.

Russia raised the price it charges Kyiv for natural gas after Yanukovych was ousted by street protests he had touched off last November by scrapping plans for a deal tightening ties with the EU and turning toward Russia instead.

In June, Russia halted gas supplies meant for domestic consumption in Ukraine when Kyiv failed to pay the higher price.

Russia is the EU's biggest external gas supplier, providing about one-third of the gas consumed there, and previous price disputes between Moscow and Kyiv have led to supply cuts that have chilled Europeans in wintertime.

Some government officials said the Western leaders would ask Putin to explain the threat of gas supply cuts.

Hundreds of people have been killed since the cease-fire, with fierce fighting focusing on the devastated Donetsk international airport and shelling reported in the city of Donetsk and elsewhere almost daily.

Ukrainian military officials said three soldiers were killed and nine wounded on October 16.

NATO said it has not yet detected 'significant' movements of Russian troops in a region near the border with Ukraine back to their home bases, as the Kremlin said Putin ordered last week.

A NATO spokesperson said 'there is still a large and capable force sitting on the border of Ukraine, and heavy equipment still has to be pulled back [from the border].'

With reporting by Reuters, AP, TASS, Interfax, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/putin-meetings-europe-merkel/26641800.html

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Ukraine, Russia Talks End, With 'Certain Progress' Reported