Germany's Merkel says Minsk cease-fire not fully implemented:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says fighting in eastern Ukraine has been reduced in recent weeks but that the Minsk cease-fire plan has not yet been fully implemented.
Merkel and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said after talks in Berlin on April 1 that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine were still involved in fighting along the front line.
A cease-fire agreement agreed to in Minsk in February has ended much of the fighting and led to some heavy weapons being pulled back.
But Merkel said all of the heavy weapons held by Ukrainian forces and rebel fighters must be removed from the front line before the next stage of the peace plan can be implemented.
Yatsenyuk said 75 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and many injured since the cease-fire began on February 15.
Merkel also said the details for a 500 million-euro ($550 million) German loan to be granted to Ukraine had not yet been finalized, and she praised Yatsenyuk's government for making "considerable progress" on reforms. (Reuters, Interfax)
Russia’s recent “snap inspection” military exercises in Western and Southern Military Districts and the defense ministry’s plans to reinforce conventional deployments in Crimea generate an impression of revived Russian military power. However, Russia’s relatively careful and low-scale use of military power in Ukraine since February 2014, problems identified during the various snap inspection exercises, as well as limitations in the capacity of the defense ministry to solve water supply issues in Crimea appear to offer ample evidence of deep and systemic Russian military weakness.
This ends our live-blogging for April 1. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Good morning. This is the top Ukraine news story this morning:
Ukraine Signs New Russian Gas Deal
Kyiv has signed a new agreement to buy Russian gas over the next three months at a price of $248 per thousand cubic meters.
In a statement posted on its website, Ukraine's Energy Ministry said the agreement extended all the other terms of the so-called "winter package" which just expired between Ukrainian state energy concern Naftogaz and Russian gas giant Gazprom.
That deal, brokered by the European Union and signed in October, included a price discount of $100 per thousand cubic meters but required Kyiv to pay up front for gas deliveries.
The statement quoted Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn as saying the agreement represented a "victory" for an economic rather than a political approach to relations between Naftogaz and Gazprom.
Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had reached a deal with Moscow to purchase gas for $285 per 1,000 cubic meters, but after his ouster in February 2014 Russia demanded $485 as well as full payment of Ukraine's multibillion dollar gas debt.
Previous gas disputes between Ukraine and Russia have resulted in reduced supplies to the EU, where Gazprom covers a third of gas demand.
Around 40 percent of that gas travels via Ukraine.