Merkel says in Munich that peace prospects uncertain:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the prospects for peace in Ukraine remain clouded after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Merkel spoke in Munich on February 7, at a security conference dominated by concerns about a conflict between government forces and Russian-backed rebels that has killed more than 5,350 people in eastern Ukraine since April.
The German leader had returned hours earlier from Moscow, where she and French President Francois Hollande presented a peace proposal to Putin after discussing it with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv a day earlier.
"After the talks yesterday in Moscow that the French president and I had, it is uncertain if it will succeed," Merkel said. "But it is in my view and the French president's view definitely worth trying. We owe it to the people affected in Ukraine, at the very least."
Hollande said the Franco-German efforts were "one of [the] last chances" for peace.
He said if a lasting agreement cannot be found, "we know the scenario...it's called war." (Reuters and dpa)
European Parliament President Martin Schulz speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference:
"I think that the German-French initiative was a good one and that the fact that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invited them was also a signal that nothing is lost, nothing is won. So I don't want to comment on the basis of secret talks. So now I am waiting, but the fact that tomorrow the talks will continue is not a bad signal."
After their latest push on Debaltseve, pro-Russian rebels are hemming in thousands of Ukrainian troops on three sides, and are close enough to shell their supply route from Artemovsk. Ukraine’s generals have ordered their men to hold the line while diplomats struggle to revive the Minsk peace deal. Their soldiers fight valiantly, but with little understanding of the strategy. “We’ve either got to attack and even out the line, or retreat,” says one. “We’re doing neither.”
Debaltseve’s strategic value lies in its rail and road links. With time, it has assumed symbolic importance. “There is not a tactical explanation for what Ukraine is doing,” says Igor Sutyagin at RUSI, a London-based think-tank. “There is a political and psychological explanation.” Losing Debaltseve would dent morale. Doctors in Artemovsk say official casualty figures are understated. Draft-dodging haunts Ukraine’s mobilisation effort. Criticism of the generals has mounted since the loss of Donetsk airport. Although Ukraine’s forces have so far given up little ground at Debaltseve, its fall is a matter of time.