Leaders hold 4-way call on Ukraine's conflict with separatists

A shell hole is seen at a damaged building after shelling in the city of Slovyansk, Donetsk Region, eastern Ukraine Sunday, June 29, 2014. Residential areas came under shelling on Sunday morning  from government forces. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
A shell hole is seen at a damaged building after shelling in the city of Slovyansk, Donetsk Region, eastern Ukraine Sunday, June 29, 2014. Residential areas came under shelling on Sunday morning from government forces. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tried to keep his peace plan to settle the conflict with pro-Russia separatists on track in a four-way phone call Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of France and Germany.

The two-hour conversation came ahead of today's deadline that European Union leaders set for Russia and the separatists to take steps to ease the violence, warning that otherwise they were ready "at any time" to impose further punitive measures.

No concrete new steps to end the violence were announced after the call, which included Poroshenko, Putin, President Francois Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. But the four leaders agreed to keep talking during the coming days.

Merkel and Hollande encouraged the Ukrainian and Russian presidents to work on meeting the EU conditions, Hollande's office said in a statement. The EU's demands included the return of three border checkpoints to Ukrainian control, verification of the cease-fire by monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and talks to put Poroshenko's peace plan in place.

Rebels holding the border checkpoints have refused to give them up.

The call was the latest in a series of discussions the four leaders have had in recent weeks in an effort to stop the fighting that has killed more than 400 people since April. A cease-fire in place since June 20 has been shaky, with each side accusing the other of numerous violations.

A statement issued by Poroshenko's office said he underlined Ukraine's willingness to maintain the cease-fire at least until this evening, but expressed concern about the situation, noting what he said were multiple violations of the truce by separatist fighters. He called on Putin to strengthen border controls from the Russian side to stop what Ukraine says is the flow of weapons, fighters and mercenaries.

The sides agreed that more talks among representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the separatists would convene "very soon," Poroshenko's office said.

A Kremlin statement said the four leaders discussed having monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe stationed at the border crossing points. They also discussed matters resulting from Ukraine's signing of a broad trade deal with the EU on Friday despite Russia's objections. Russian officials have said Ukraine's tariff-free trade arrangement with Russia may be withdrawn, but no trade sanctions have yet been announced.

The Kremlin said Putin spoke of the "deteriorating humanitarian situation in the southeast of Ukraine" and "stressed the need for immediate humanitarian assistance to the population of this region." Russia has said that a rising number of refugees from eastern Ukraine have been seeking safety in Russia.

In another indication that tensions remain high, several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and activists gathered outside the presidential administration in Kiev on Sunday to demand that Poroshenko lift the cease-fire and allow them to resume their fight.

A presidential administration official, Henadiy Zubko, promised to pass on their demands to the president, but told them that the cease-fire order would remain in effect until 10 p.m. today.

Soldiers also addressed several thousand people who turned out for the traditional Sunday rally on Independence Square in central Kiev.

Ukraine accused pro-Russia rebels of starting at least seven skirmishes Saturday in violation of a cease-fire, and urged Putin's government to "stop hiring and recruiting militants."

Rebels killed five Ukrainian soldiers in violation of a truce extended by the country's government after the European Union gave Russia three days to quell the insurgency or face deeper sanctions. Thirteen soldiers also were wounded in the attacks by pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine's eastern region, while five suffered shell shock, Ukraine National Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in Kiev on Sunday.

"Militants regularly break the cease-fire," Lysenko said. "Ukraine demands from Russia to immediately stop support of terrorists and to stop hiring and recruiting militants in Ukraine and in Russia's Rostov and Krasnodar regions."

In the conference call, Poroshenko also complained that the militants were not abiding by the cease-fire and that Russia was still allowing fighters and weapons to flow across the border to the rebels.

"Ukraine continues to insist on the return of control to the State Border Service of all checkpoints," Poroshenko's office said in a statement describing the call. "The Ukrainian president also called on the Russian president to enhance the regime of the state border by Russia, in order to stop the flow of insurgents and mercenaries to Ukraine and the supply of arms and armored vehicles for them."

Both sides continued to trade accusations. Ukraine's National Guard said in a statement on its website that militants in the eastern part of the country shot "massively" at a guard roadblock in the Donetsk region, without hurting any soldiers. Russia's RIA Novosti state news wire said Ukraine forces shelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, a rebel stronghold in Donetsk. Three people, including two women, were killed in the shelling, Russian state TV Rossia 24 said, without saying where it obtained the information.

Another EU condition was fulfilled late Saturday, when pro-Russia separatists released a second team of four Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers who had been held captive in eastern Ukraine since the end of May. The first team of four was freed recently.

Other people not associated with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are still being held in the region.

The free-trade pact that Ukraine signed with the EU was the very deal that the former Ukrainian president dumped under pressure from Moscow in November, fueling huge protests that eventually drove him from power. Moscow responded to those events by annexing the mainly Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula in March, and the pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine broke out a month later.

About 67 percent of Ukrainians would vote to join the EU in a referendum, according to a June 6-11 Razumkov Center poll of 2,012 voters, versus 20 percent who wouldn't.

While the deal doesn't offer EU membership, it gives Ukrainian companies better access to the world's biggest trading bloc and will boost exports by $1.4 billion a year, according to an EU estimate. In exchange, Ukraine pledged to use EU funds to meet product, safety and consumer standards, bolster human rights and fight graft.

The United States and the EU have slapped travel bans and asset freezes on members of Putin's inner circle, and threatened to impose more crippling sanctions against entire sectors of Russia's economy if the Kremlin fails to de-escalate the crisis.

Information for this article was contributed by David McHugh of The Associated Press; by David M. Herszenhorn of The New York Times; and by Kateryna Choursina, Elena Mazneva, Scott Rose, Roger Runningen, Phil Mattingly, Katherine A O'Neill and Ewa Krukowska of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 06/30/2014

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