Putin, Obama discuss solution to Ukraine crisis
|
| Ukrainian servicemen carry a bag to a truck before leaving the Belbek airbase near Sevastopol, Crimea, Friday, March 28, 2014. Ukraine started withdrawing its troops and weapons from Crimea, now controlled by Russia. Russia's president says Ukraine could regain some arms and equipment of military units in Crimea that did not switch their loyalty to Russia. |
MOSCOW (AP)
-- Russian President Vladimir Putin called President Barack Obama on
Friday to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, while
Ukraine's fugitive leader urged a nationwide referendum that would serve
Moscow's purpose of turning its neighbor into a loosely knit
federation.
The statement from Viktor
Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president who fled to Russia last month
after three months of protests, raised the threat of more unrest in
Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern provinces, where many resent the new
Ukrainian government.
Also Friday, Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin the Ukrainian military
withdrawal from Crimea was complete. Ukrainian soldiers were seen
carrying duffel bags and flags as they shipped out of the Black Sea
peninsula that Russia has annexed.
While
Yanukovych has practically no leverage in Ukraine, his statement clearly
reflected the Kremlin's focus on supporting separatist sentiments in
eastern Ukraine.
The White House said that
Putin called Obama Friday to discuss a U.S. proposal for a diplomatic
resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, which U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry presented to Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov earlier this week.
Obama suggested that Russia put a concrete response in writing and the
presidents agreed that Kerry and Lavrov would meet to discuss the next
steps.
"President Obama noted that the
Ukrainian government continues to take a restrained and de-escalatory
approach to the crisis and is moving ahead with constitutional reform
and democratic elections, and urged Russia to support this process and
avoid further provocations, including the buildup of forces on its
border with Ukraine," the White House said in a statement.
A
White House official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and
demanded anonymity, said that Obama and Putin spoke for an hour. He said
the plan was the old off-ramp roadmap that had been drafted before
Russia annexed Crimea last week.
The Kremlin
said in its account of the conversation that Putin talked about action
by extremists in Ukraine and suggested "possible steps by the
international community to help stabilize the situation" in Ukraine. It
added that Putin also pointed at an "effective blockade" of Moldova's
separatist region of Trans-Dniester, where Russia has troops. Russia and
the local authorities have complained of Ukraine's recent moves to
limit travel across the border of the region on Ukraine's southern
border. There were fears in Ukraine that Russia could use its forces in
Trans-Dniester to invade.
Deep divisions
between Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern regions, where many favor
close ties with Moscow, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, where most want
to integrate into Europe, continue to fuel tensions.
The
Crimean Peninsula, where ethnic Russians are a majority, voted this
month to secede from Ukraine before Russia formally annexed it, a move
that Western countries have denounced as illegitimate. Talk percolates
of similar votes in other Ukrainian regions with large Russian
populations, although none has been scheduled.
Russia
has pushed strongly for federalizing Ukraine - giving its regions more
autonomy - but Ukraine's interim authorities in Kiev have rejected such a
move. The one vote that has been scheduled is a presidential election
on May 25.
"Only an all-Ukrainian referendum,
not the early presidential elections, could to a large extent stabilize
the political situation and preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and
territorial integrity," Yanukovych said in a statement carried by the
ITAR-Tass news agency.
He didn't specify what the vote should ask or when it should be held.
Russia's
state RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Alexei Mukhin, a Kremlin-connected
political analyst, as saying while a nationwide referendum would be
difficult to organize in each of Ukraine's provinces, the country's
southeastern regions could follow Yanukovych's advice.
In
Kiev, Ukrainian prosecutors opened a new investigation against
Yanukovych on charges of making calls to overthrow the country's
constitutional order. He already is being investigated in the deaths of
dozens of Ukrainian protesters who were shot dead in Kiev in February.
Yanukovych's
old rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, attacked his
statement, accusing him of being "a tool aimed at destroying the
independence of Ukraine."
Tymoshenko is running in Ukraine's next presidential election, which Russia has sought to delay.
The
new Ukrainian government and the West, meanwhile, have voiced concerns
about a possible invasion as Russia builds up its troops near the border
with Ukraine. Putin has warned that Russia could use "all means" to
protect people in Ukraine from radical nationalists.
However,
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that Putin had assured
him he had no intention of making another military move into Ukraine.
That
was echoed by Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who said Putin
made clear in a March 18 statement that there was not going to be any
new Russian move into Ukraine.
While Putin has
said Russia doesn't want a division of Ukraine, he also sought to cast
it as an artificial state created by the Communists that includes
historic Russian regions - controversial statements that raise doubts
about the Kremlin's intentions.
To tamp down
those fears, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Moscow
allowed observation flights over the border by Ukrainian, U.S., German
and other Western officials. It said if any major troop concentrations
had been spotted, the West wouldn't have been shy to speak about it.
Russia
also kept pushing its long-held contention that ethnic minorities in
Ukraine are living in fear of the new interim authorities. The Foreign
Ministry said not just ethnic Russians, but ethnic Germans, Hungarians
and Czechs in Ukraine also are feeling in peril.
"They
are unsettled by the unstable political situation in the country and
are seriously afraid for their lives," the statement said, without
citing specific incidents.
However, there have been no signs of such threats toward ethnic minorities in Ukraine.
Russia also said it has responded anew to Western sanctions over Ukraine but did not make any new names public.
Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said some Western
nations have followed the U.S. example and expanded their sanctions
against Russia, adding that Moscow has taken "retaliatory measures,
which are largely tit-for-tat." He wouldn't say who the latest targets
were.
The United States, the European Union
and Canada have slapped Russia with travel bans and asset freezes
targeting its officials and lawmakers over the annexation of Crimea.
