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KIEV. — In a new push for peace, the leaders of France and Germany headed yesterday to Kiev and Moscow with a proposal to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The surprise move appeared aimed at heading off US considerations of giving Ukraine lethal weapons, something Europeans fear.
The flurry of high-level diplomacy comes as resurgent fighting in eastern Ukraine is threatening Europe’s overall security.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin’s aide welcomed the new European initiative and said the Kremlin was ready for a constructive discussion.
NATO defence ministers in Brussels, however, were ready to boost the military alliance’s forces in response to the fighting in Ukraine and Russia’s increased military forcefulness.
Russia has vehemently denied backing the rebels with troops and weapons, while acknowledging that some Russians are fighting with the separatists.
Western military experts disagree.
Calling it a “very critical moment in our history,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko yesterday warmly welcomed US Secretary of State John Kerry to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.
In a joint news conference after their talks, Kerry urged Russia to show its commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine by ceasing its military support for the separatists and bringing them to the negotiation table.
“Our choice is diplomacy,” Kerry said, making no mention of providing Ukraine with lethal military aid.
Fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine surged in January, raising the death toll to over 5,300 people killed since April.
French President Francois Hollande said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would travel to Kiev and then to Moscow the following day with a proposal “based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
“It will not be said that France and Germany together have not tried everything, undertaken everything, to preserve the peace,” Hollande said.
The French leader did not mention the US in any context, saying the two European nations have special historic, cultural and economic ties with Russia. A senior French government official said the two leaders decided on Wednesday night on the trip and did not consult American officials about it.
The official was not authorised to be named, according to French policy.
In Moscow, Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Russia was “ready for a constructive conversation” aimed at stabilising the situation, establishing a dialogue between the Ukrainian government and the rebels and rebuilding economic ties between eastern Ukraine and Kiev.
He said the Kremlin expects that Merkel and Hollande had taken Putin’s own peace proposals into account, but wouldn’t offer any details.
Western diplomats said Putin gave the French and Germans a nine-page peace plan, and that Hollande and Merkel are taking a repackaged version of that with them. — AP.
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