Gorbachev warns of 'hot' war'
Gorbachev warns of 'hot' war'
Europe yesterday prepared to draft even tougher sanctions against Russia over Ukraine as ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned against the danger of an increasingly isolated Kremlin fighting back.
The last Soviet leader's words of caution came with the daily death toll in Ukraine's separatist east spiking again with the nine-month war threatening to turn into a lasting conflict that keeps Europe on constant edge.
Gorbachev said the West's decision to respond to the violence by blaming Russia and cutting it off from access to US and European capital markets threatened to spiral into open warfare with dire consequences across the world.
"Where will that lead all of us? A Cold War is already being waged openly. What's next?" the 83-year-old Nobel peace prize winner asked.
"Unfortunately I cannot say for sure that a Cold War will not lead to a 'hot' one."
Pro-Russian insurgents last week pulled out of peace talks and announced a new offensive that was followed by a rocket assault on the strategic port of Mariupol in which 31 civilians died.
Rebel commanders later distanced themselves from the bloodshed despite being blamed for it by international monitors on site.
But they have followed through on their threat to push into lucrative eastern industrial lands that still answer to Kiev's pro-Western government under a September deal approved by the warring sides in Belarus.
"We pronounce the Minsk agreements dead," Donetsk separatist commander Eduard Basurin told reporters.
"The version that was signed no longer applies."
But the Belarussian foreign ministry yesterday announced a new peace push. It said the contact group of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE will meet in Minsk today to hold peace talks aimed at ending the fighting in east Ukraine.
The United States and its European allies view the latest rebel surge as part of a proxy war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in reprisal for last year's ousting a Kiev's former Kremlin-backed government.
EU leaders unanimously backed more Russian sanctions in a rare statement adopted outside a regular Brussels session on Tuesday.
Greece and Cyprus later distanced themselves from the statement but are not expected to fight new penalties the bloc's 28 foreign ministers draft yesterday.
Greece has historic links with Russia, but the speed that the new government has made clear its ties to the Kremlin has worried some leaders in Brussels. EU ministers are gathering today to attempt to agree on stricter sanctions, but the vote must be unanimous – meaning that the Greeks hold the power of veto.
Previous Western measures and a coinciding slide in oil prices have plunged Russia into recession and seen Standard and Poor's slap a "junk" rating on Moscow's foreign currency debt.
The downgrade threatens to further alienate Western investors and burdens Russia's economy with the same failing grade it struggled with at the start of Putin's 15-year rule.
Yet the pain appears to have done little to alter Putin's tough approach to his western neighbour or to dent Russians' monumental trust in the Kremlin chief.
Gorbachev -- either despised or ignored by most in Russia -- is revered in the West as an elder statesman who helped erase the threat of global nuclear warfare by overseeing the peaceful end to the Cold War.