5 Ukrainian soldiers killed, German foreign minister visits Kiev
Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours, the military said on Tuesday, as Germany's foreign minister prepared to hold talks on the crisis in both Kiev and Moscow.
The trip by Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be one of the first visits by a senior German official to Moscow since the Ukraine crisis erupted earlier this year, provoking a deep rift between Russia and the West.
Steinmeier's visit comes amid rising violence in eastern Ukraine and accusations by Kiev and the West that Russia is sending soldiers and weapons over the border to help pro-Russian rebels there, a charge the Kremlin denies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov played down the likelihood of Steinmeier's trip having any real impact on Russian policy towards Ukraine.
"The visit is a working one. We have agreed of course to talk about Ukraine, about our bilateral relations (but) no-one is expecting any breakthrough," he told a news conference in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
Steinmeier will meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk in Kiev before heading to Moscow.
"During the past 24 hours, due to shelling and explosions of mines, five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and eight others received injuries of varying severity," military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said in a Facebook post.
Shelling from both sides has repeatedly punctured a ceasefire, agreed in a deal signed on Sept. 5, raising fears the truce could collapse completely.
More than 4,000 people have been killed overall since the separatist rebellions erupted in eastern Ukraine in April.
Tension between Russia and the West has increased further since the separatists staged elections on Nov. 2 in their self-proclaimed 'people's republics' in eastern Ukraine.
The United States and the EU have imposed sanctions on Moscow over its policy on Ukraine but the EU's 28 member states are deeply divided about bringing in more economic sanctions, fearing the measures and possible Russian reprisals could hurt their own economies which depend heavily on supplies of Russian gas.
NATO leader sees 'serious military buildup' in Ukraine, urges Russia to pull back troops http://t.co/knebwNrdsB
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) November 18, 2014
Germany's foreign minister said he would assess the chances of making progress to end the crisis in Ukraine during talks in Moscow on Tuesday but Russia said it saw no chance of a breakthrough.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's trip will be one of the first by a senior German official to Moscow since the crisis in Ukraine began, causing a deep rift between Russia and the West.
Violence is in the rise again in eastern Ukraine despite a more than two-month-old ceasefire, and Kiev and the West say Russia is sending in soldiers and weapons to help pro-Russian rebels in the east, a charge the Kremlin denies.
Speaking in Kiev, where he stopped off on his way to Moscow, Steinmeier said he wanted to see if talks at the weekend in Brisbane between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin had improved the chances of an effective ceasefire in Ukraine.
He told a news conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk that he was worried the fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatists would undermine the ceasefire signed in the Belarussian capital, Minsk.
"Last weekend in Brisbane there were a lot of talks with the Russian president including the German chancellor with Putin, so now I am here and this afternoon ... I will set out to see if these talks in Brisbane have created an atmosphere where we can work more concretely to implement the Minsk agreement," he said.
Yatseniuk accused the rebels and Russia of violating the Minsk deal and added: "Russia should do what it signed up to and promised the whole world it would do."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov played down the likelihood of Steinmeier's trip having any real impact on Russian policy towards Ukraine.
"The visit is a working one. We have agreed of course to talk about Ukraine, about our bilateral relations (but) no-one is expecting any breakthrough," Lavrov told a news conference in Minsk.
More than 4,000 people have been killed since the separatist rebellions erupted in eastern Ukraine in April.
Kiev said six Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours, bringing to more than 140 the number of government troops killed since the ceasefire was declared on Sept. 5.
Lavrov said Moscow would not "plead" with Western powers to lift sanctions imposed over its policies on Ukraine.
"We do not seek confrontation in relations with the EU but we will let our European partners know that sanctions are a road to nowhere," he said in Minsk.
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