Sit, talk, German urges in Ukraine

An armed pro-Russia militiaman checks a car Tuesday at the barricades on a road leading into Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine.
An armed pro-Russia militiaman checks a car Tuesday at the barricades on a road leading into Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine.

KIEV, Ukraine -- Germany's foreign minister tried to broker a quick launch of talks between Ukraine's central government and pro-Russia separatists, yet Ukraine was skeptical Tuesday and fighting claimed six more lives in the country's east.

Six Ukrainian servicemen were ambushed and killed, and eight others wounded Tuesday afternoon outside the town of Kramatorsk, the Defense Ministry said. They were attacked by at least 30 insurgents using grenade launchers and automatic weapons, it said in a statement.

Kramatorsk is in the Donetsk region, one of two areas in eastern Ukraine that declared independence Monday.

Speaking at Kiev's main airport, German envoy Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was supporting efforts to arrange a dialogue between Ukraine's central government in Kiev and its pro-Russia opponents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Pro-Russia insurgents in those regions have seized government buildings and clashed with government forces for the past month, since the ouster of Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych after months of protests in Kiev.

Steinmeier met the acting prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in Kiev and had plans to travel on to Odessa on the Black Sea, where a fire killed some 40 people earlier this month, German diplomats said.

"We support your efforts to launch a national dialogue, under Ukrainian ownership, here in your country, through round tables, at the central level and in the regions," Steinmeier said during a joint news conference with Yatsenyuk.

"I hope this will create the conditions to take a step to bring back occupied territory, disarm armed groups step by step and reinstall the authority of the state," Steinmeier said, adding that the planned presidential election on May 25 would "play a crucial role" in ending a crisis that ranks as one of the most serious in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

Germany has repeatedly pushed for a diplomatic solution in Ukraine while insisting that it would support tougher sanctions if Russia either invades or obstructs the presidential vote. Above all, German politicians have made clear, they seek an elected figure to deal with in Kiev.

Steinmeier's trip is part of the road map for settling Ukraine's crisis laid out by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a trans-Atlantic security group.

The organization plan calls for all sides to refrain from violence and urges amnesty for those involved in the unrest, as well as for talks on decentralization and the status of the Russian language. It envisages a quick launch of high-level round tables across the country bringing together national lawmakers and representatives of the central government and the regions.

But Ukrainian officials sounded skeptical Tuesday about the plan.

Speaking in Brussels later Tuesday, Yatsenyuk thanked the Vienna-based organization but said Ukraine has drawn up its own "road map" for ending the crisis and noted the people of his country should settle the issue themselves.

Russia, meanwhile, called Tuesday for a swift implementation of the organization's plan, saying its demand to end violence means Kiev should stop its military operation to recapture buildings in the east, lift its blockade of cities and towns, pull its forces from eastern regions and release all insurgents.

"We are demanding [they] stop intimidating civilians by using force or threatening to use it," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

It added that it expects separatists in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions to respond in kind if Kiev does.

However, the insurgents previously defied Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to put off the referendum, and they brushed off a call to disarm and leave the buildings they occupy that was part of a conflict-resolution pact that Russia, Kiev, the U.S. and the European Union negotiated less than a month ago in Geneva.

Moscow also continued to pressure the interim authorities in Kiev through Gazprom, the giant natural-gas company in which the Russian government has a 50.01 percent stake. The Kremlin often uses Gazprom for political purposes.

A spokesman for Gazprom, Sergei Kupriyanov, said in a statement Tuesday that the Ukrainian state gas company, Naftogaz, would have until June 2 to pay $1.6 billion for June gas supplies, news reports said. "Starting from June 3," the statement said, "the company will receive gas for Ukrainian consumers only in the amounts it has paid for."

Naftogaz said it had been notified of the advance payment demand, but declined to comment further.

Russia on Tuesday also urged the United States and the European Union to persuade authorities in Kiev to prioritize discussions of giving more powers to Ukraine's regions ahead of the country's May 25 presidential vote.

Yevhen Perebiynis, spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, lamented Tuesday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe deal does not specifically oblige Russia to do anything. The Ukrainian government and the West have accused Russia of fomenting the mutiny in the east to derail Ukraine's presidential vote and possibly grab more land.

"The de-escalation of the situation directly depends on whether Russia will stop sponsoring the terrorists, withdraw its troops from the border or whether it will call on terrorists to lay down the arms and vacate the building they have seized," Perebiynis said in comments carried by the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

The separatists held a referendum Sunday and said about 90 percent of those who voted in Donetsk and Luhansk backed sovereignty. The two regions declared independence Monday, and those in Donetsk asked to join Russia.

Ukraine's acting president called the vote a sham, and Western governments said it violated international law.

The Kremlin has shown no immediate intention of annexing eastern Ukraine like it did the Crimean Peninsula in March. Instead, Moscow has pushed for talks between Ukraine's central government and eastern regions on Ukraine's future -- suggesting that Russia prefers a political rather than a military solution to its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War.

The interim government in Kiev had been hoping the May 25 presidential vote would unify the country behind a new, democratically chosen leadership. The insurgents in Luhansk have already said they won't hold the presidential vote.

Serhiy Taruta, the Kiev-appointed governor of the Donetsk region, on Tuesday urged the Ukrainian parliament to authorize a June 15 vote to help the regions gain more powers while still remaining part of Ukraine.

While he dismissed Sunday's separatist vote as an "opinion poll," Taruta said everyone in Ukraine, including those in the east, "should hear answers to the questions that they are concerned about."

Taruta said key issues include giving more powers to local authorities, creating municipal police forces and approving a broader use of languages other than Ukrainian.

Insurgents, meanwhile, said unidentified assailants fired at a car carrying Valery Bolotov, a separatist leader in Luhansk. Bolotov was hospitalized with wounds that were not life-threatening, the insurgents said. Bolotov was the one who announced independence Monday for his region.

Information for this article was contributed by Nataliya Vasilyeva, Vladimir Isachenkov, Peter Leonard, Julie Pace, Jill Lawless, Jim Heintz and John-Thor Dahlburg of The Associated Press; and by Alison Smale and Alan Cowell of The New York Times.

A Section on 05/14/2014

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