U.S. Keeps Tough Line On Russia Despite Ukraine Truce
Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, has said the United States will maintain sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine until the terms of the Minsk peace plan are fully implemented.
Nuland was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 8, as the cease-fire agreed in Minsk in February has been widely upheld in the past month.
The conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists has killed more than 7,900 people since April 2014.
Nuland also said that sanctions imposed on Russia after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 would remain in place until the Kremlin agrees to withdraw Russian forces.
"We will judge Russia and the separatists by their actions, not their words," she said.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, October 8. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our ongoing coverage.
The West must 'treat Russia properly': Juncker
Berlin, Oct 8, 2015 (AFP) -- The West must "treat Russia properly" and address it as an equal, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday, criticising US President Barack Obama for labelling Moscow a mere regional power.
"I know from my conversations with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that he (does not accept) phrases like when Barack Obama said Russia was a regional power. What does that mean? You can't talk about Russia like that," Juncker told a conference in the southern German town of Passau.
"We must, I say frankly, treat Russia properly," he said, "Russia should be treated as an equal."
Russia began a bombing campaign in Syria last week, radically changing the course of the four-and-a-half-year conflict and providing a massive boost to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Moscow's relations with the West were already at a post-Cold War low after last year's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and its subsequent support of rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Juncker, while urging a new stance to Moscow, stressed that Russia must also "make huge advances", adding that its role in Crimea and east Ukraine was unacceptable.
Europe and the US have imposed sanctions on Russia as a result of its annexation of Crimea early last year.
Western nations have also been highly critical of Russia's military intervention in Syria, accusing Moscow of seeking to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad more than tackling the Islamic State jihadists operating there.