Peacekeepers Expected To Be Focus Of Berlin Talks On Ukraine Conflict
By RFE/RL
The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine are scheduled to meet in Berlin on June 11 to discuss the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The issue of deploying a UN peacekeeping mission in the conflict zone is expected to be discussed at the meeting under the “Normandy format” negotiations.
All sides back a UN peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, but they disagree on its mandate.
Germany and France want UN troops to be deployed in all areas controlled by Russia-backed rebels, including on the Ukraine-Russia border. Russia opposes this idea.
More than 10,300 people have been killed in fighting between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
Efforts to institute a cease-fire in the conflict zone have largely failed.
The UN Security Council adopted a statement on June 6 encouraging all parties in Ukraine to recommit to a 2015 peace deal and expressing “grave concern” at deteriorating security in eastern Ukraine.
All 15 Security Council members, including Russia, agreed on the presidential statement, which was an initiative of France and Germany. It was the first pronouncement by the UN Security Council on Ukraine since January 2017.
France's UN Ambassador Francois Delattre said Russia's agreement "is one of the reasons why the presidential statement is important...and, of course, it makes a world of difference."
The 2015 peace agreement, signed in the Belarus capital of Minsk, has helped reduce hostilities, but UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council on May 29 that "the relative calm that held in the early weeks of 2018 was followed in April and May by a sharp increase in the number of victims."
"The security situation on the ground remains volatile," she said. "The killing, destruction, and immense suffering continues" and "eastern Ukraine is facing a serious humanitarian crisis."
The civilian death toll in the conflict has now exceeded 2,700, with as many as 9,000 injured, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
An estimated 1.6 million people remain internally displaced – the largest uprooted population in Europe and among the 10 largest in the world.
Over half a million civilians live within 5 kilometers of the 457-kilometer line that divides the opposing forces in eastern Ukraine, subjected to shelling, gunfire, land mines, and unexploded ordnance.
“The area around the Line of Contact is now the third most mine-contaminated area in the world,” DiCarlo said.
With reporting by Reuters and AP
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Sunday, June 10, 2018. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
Putin: Too Early To Talk Details Of Possible Prisoner Exchange With Ukraine
By RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin says it is too early to discuss details of a possible exchange of prisoners with Kyiv, including imprisoned Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov.
Speaking on June 10 at a summit Qingdao, China, Putin indicated in responses to questions from reporters that back-channel talks were being held on the issue, which could involve the release of dozens of prisoners just days ahead of the start of the soccer World Cup in Russia this week.
"It's so far premature to say how this issue will be solved," Putin said at a security summit.
He added that he did not want to comment at this time "so as not to violate anything here and not to disrupt anything."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s office said in a statement on June 9 that he had spoken by phone with Putin and that Poroshenko specifically requested the release of Ukrainian citizens being held in Russia who are on hunger strike.
Among those who Poroshenko urged Moscow to release was Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who is on hunger strike in a Russian prison in Far Northern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region.
Sentsov has been on hunger strike since May 14, demanding that Russia release 64 Ukrainian citizens that he considers political prisoners.
He said on June 9 in a letter to Russian human rights activists Nicholas and Tatyana Schur, which was published on the independent website Hromadske, that he was “feeling well.”
Sentsov was arrested in Crimea in 2014, after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. A Russian court in 2015 convicted him of planning to commit terrorist acts. He denies the accusations.