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Putin Outlines 7-Point Plan for Ukraine Cease-Fire Putin Outlines 7-Point Plan for Ukraine Cease-Fire
(about 4 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia listed seven steps on Wednesday that he said were necessary for a cease-fire in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Mr. Putin said he and the president of Ukraine, Petro O. Poroshenko, had a similar understanding about what was needed, and he urged Ukraine and the pro-Russian separatists in the east to reach a settlement at talks scheduled for Friday in Belarus. KIEV, Ukraine — On the eve of a NATO summit focused on Russian aggression, President Vladimir V. Putin unveiled on Wednesday a seven-point peace plan for Ukraine while President Obama and other Western leaders tried to keep the spotlight on the Kremlin’s role in stoking the conflict there and the penalties it should suffer for doing so.
The primary conditions on Mr. Putin’s list are that the separatists halt all offensive operations and that Ukrainian troops move their artillery back out of range of cities and large towns in the rebel-held area. Never at a loss for theatrical flair, Mr. Putin announced soon after arriving on a state visit to Mongolia that he had sketched out the plan in flight, brandishing a notebook page on which the first point was that both sides “end active offensive operations.”
Mr. Putin also called for Ukraine to cease airstrikes; the establishment of an international monitoring mission and humanitarian aid corridors; an “all for all” prisoner exchange; and “rebuilding brigades” to repair damaged roads, bridges, power lines and other infrastructure. But the plan seemed to raise more questions than it answered. First, there was no mechanism agreed for implementation. Second, just hours earlier the president’s own spokesman had repeated the Russian position, widely criticized as implausible, that Moscow could not negotiate a cease-fire because it was not a direct party to the conflict.
His remarks came at a news conference during a state visit to Mongolia. After confirming that he had spoken with Mr. Poroshenko, Mr. Putin offhandedly mentioned that he had “sketched out” a peace plan during his flight from Moscow. An aide then handed Mr. Putin a notebook, from which he read the plan. The timing of Mr. Putin’s announcement was lost on no one, however. The Russian leader managed to deflect some attention from President Obama’s speech in Tallinn, Estonia, where he made some of his harshest comments to date about the Kremlin’s armed intervention in Ukraine and hinted that NATO might now be willing to provide military assistance to Kiev.
Mr. Putin offered his seven-point plan a day before the leaders of the NATO alliance, including President Obama, are scheduled to meet in Newport, Wales, with the crisis in Ukraine at the top of the agenda. The alliance is expected to announce that it will create a new rapid-reaction force for defending its members in Eastern Europe, along with other measures. NATO leaders, including President Obama, are to meet in Newport, Wales, on Thursday to discuss bolstering the alliance, including a new rapid deployment force designed to respond to future Russian military threats and a reaffirmation of its commitment to its smaller members.
Mr. Putin said he expected Ukraine and the separatists to announce an agreement by Friday. The two-day NATO summit is scheduled to conclude that day. In addition, European leaders are contemplating a fourth, harsher round of sanctions against Russia, with France announcing already on Wednesday that it was suspending the delivery of a new Mistral warship to Russia. Sanctions to date have not had any direct effect on most Russians, and Mr. Putin remains wildly popular, but the economy is sputtering.
Though Mr. Putin said that he and Mr. Poroshenko had similar views on achieving a cease-fire, the Ukrainian prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, issued a fierce statement on Wednesday rejecting his plan. The details of any peace deal in southeastern Ukraine were sketchy at best, entangled in complicated diplomacy and domestic politics. But it was clear from the various, somewhat confused and contradictory statements that Mr. Putin and the Ukrainian president, Petro O. Poroshenko, held an extensive discussion on the issue by telephone early Wednesday.
A government website said Mr. Yatsenyuk called the plan “an attempt to confuse the international community” before the NATO summit and the expected announcement of new sanctions from the European Union. At first, Mr. Poroshenko’s office issued a vague announcement that the two leaders had agreed to a “lasting cease-fire.” The statement was diluted later to say only that both leaders had endorsed the need for a cease-fire and that Mr. Poroshenko hoped negotiations would begin in earnest on Friday. Mr. Putin said his jottings emerged from the telephone conversation.
“Putin’s real plan is the destruction of Ukraine and the resumption of the U.S.S.R.,” Mr. Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying. He said “the best plan to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine” would be if "Russia withdraws their regular troops, mercenaries and terrorists from Ukrainian territory — then peace will be reinstated in Ukraine.” In announcing the plan, Mr. Putin said he expected Ukraine and the separatists to wrap up an agreement along those lines after the new round of negotiations in Minsk, Belarus, on Friday. Ukraine, Russia and Europe are all party to the talks there, and they include representatives of the separatists. The two-day NATO summit is scheduled to end the same day.
Earlier on Wednesday, there was confusion about whether Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko had reached an agreement of their own. Mr. Poroshenko’s office first issued and then retracted a statement saying that the two had agreed to a “lasting cease-fire.” A spokesman for Mr. Poroshenko’s office said the initial statement, posted on the presidential website, went too far in describing the results of a telephone call between the two leaders, and that the call had not produced a formal agreement. Following protocol, the spokesman did not give his name. Aside from the cease-fire, the plan laid out by Mr. Putin called for Ukrainian artillery to pull back and out of range of the eastern separatists’ strongholds; an end to airstrikes; an exchange of all detainees; opening up humanitarian corridors for residents of the separatist areas; repairing damaged infrastructure; and deploying international observers to monitor the cease-fire.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, said separately that Russia could not negotiate a cease-fire because it was not a party to the conflict, but that the opinions of the two presidents overlapped. It made no mention of autonomy for the separatist eastern regions, the central political demand that Russia has emphasized since March. That is widely seen as critical to the Kremlin’s long-term goal of maintaining influence over Ukraine’s domestic affairs and blocking any future attempt to join NATO.
“Putin and Poroshenko did indeed discuss steps which could facilitate a cease-fire between the militias and the Ukrainian military,” Mr. Peskov was quoted as saying by the news agency RIA Novosti. “Russia cannot physically agree on a cease-fire, as it is not a side in the conflict.” A previous cease-fire collapsed after 10 days in June, and a long line of critics starting with President Obama gave little hope that this plan might succeed.
The West and Ukraine have accused Russia of providing arms and soldiers to support the separatists, an allegation that Mr. Putin has repeatedly denied. “We haven’t seen a lot of follow-up on so-called announced cease-fires,” Mr. Obama told a news conference in Estonia. “Having said that, if in fact Russia is prepared to stop financing, arming, training — in many cases joining with Russian troops — activities in Ukraine and is serious about a political settlement, that is something we all hope for.”
Mr. Peskov said Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko had “continued discussion regarding the military and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.” They discussed “what should be done primarily to stop the bloodshed” in southeastern Ukraine, Mr. Peskov said, and that “the presidents’ viewpoints on possible ways to overcome the grave and critical situation coincide to a considerable degree.” Mr. Obama devoted his main speech to a scathing attack on Russia’s actions against Ukraine.
Vladislav Brig, the head of the political department for the rebels’ Ministry of Defense in Donetsk, said in a telephone conversation that combat operations were continuing as usual on Wednesday. “It is a brazen assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, a sovereign and independent European nation,” the American president said in a speech to more than 1,800 students, young professionals and civic and political leaders at a concert hall. “It challenges that most basic of principles of our international system: that borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun; that nations have the right to determine their own future.”
“Nobody is holding negotiations about a cease-fire with the representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Mr. Brig said. “As long as there are Ukrainian soldiers on our territory, there will be no cease-fire.” Rejecting Mr. Putin’s frequent denials of intervention in Ukraine and his assertion that the Russian presence there is part of a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission, Mr. Obama said it was clear Moscow was responsible for escalating tensions. “It’s been the pro-Russian separatists who are encouraged by Russia, financed by Russia, trained by Russia, supplied by Russia and armed by Russia,” he said.
Miroslav Rudenko, a member of the rebel Parliament, suggested that the cease-fire might be a trick, but also suggested an openness to negotiations. Mr. Obama said that any assault on the Baltic States, Soviet republics just like Ukraine, but unlike Ukraine now members of NATO, would be met by force. “We’ll be here for Estonia. We’ll be here for Latvia. We’ll be here for Lithuania,” the president said. “You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again.”
“If the Ukrainian side will hold to their promises to cease fire, then we are prepared for a political side of the settlement,” he told the Russian news agency Interfax. In Kiev, the idea of a cease-fire was received with mixed emotions.
President Obama, on a visit to Estonia on Wednesday, suggested that the real test would be whether Moscow was willing to rein in the separatists and stop its military support for them. There is open hostility to the idea that Russia will be able to dictate terms to its weaker neighbor after already wrenching away the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March. Any compromise after months of condemning the separatists as “terrorists” risks weakening Mr. Poroshenko in central and western Ukraine.
“If, in fact, Russia is prepared to stop financing, arming, training, in many cases joining with Russian troops’ activities in Ukraine and is serious about a political settlement, that is something we all hope for,” Mr. Obama said at a televised news conference in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called Mr. Putin’s proposal “an attempt to confuse the international community” before the NATO summit and the expected announcement of new sanctions from the European Union.
“We haven’t seen a lot of follow-up on so-called announced cease-fires,” Mr. Obama said after meeting with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia. “Putin’s real plan is the destruction of Ukraine and the resumption of the U.S.S.R.,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said, according to a statement posted on a government website. Peace will come only once Russia withdraws its troops and proxy force, it said.
Mr. Obama’s comments came as he began a day of private meetings with Baltic leaders and of public statements meant to reassure fretful allies — particularly those bordering Russia — that the United States and Europe were serious about defending them from a newly aggressive neighbor. But many Ukrainians are weary of the violence, horrified by the mounting human toll of more than 2,600 dead and uneasy about the economic costs for a country already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Winter is approaching, and the other confrontation with Russia, over gas sales, seems unlikely to be resolved while fighting rages in the east.
Mr. Ilves said the Ukraine conflict and its wider impact on European security was “the question on everyone’s mind.” He added that “Russia must admit that it is a party to the conflict and take genuine steps that will lead to a de-escalation.” “We are in a situation where any kind of cease-fire would be progress,” said Olexander Scherba, an ambassador at large in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. “Last week was devastating after Russia started this open invasion of Ukraine.”
Over the weekend, Ukraine and NATO accused Russia of sending troops and armor over the border. European Union leaders then discussed a new round of sanctions against Russia, the fourth, which could be enacted within a week. Russia has repeatedly denied sending troops or arms to Ukraine, but last week separatist forces were able to open a new front along the coast and to break the Ukrainian forces’ siege of the separatist centers of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The French government announced on Wednesday that because of the Ukraine conflict, it would suspend delivery of two Mistral-class warships to Russia that are being built in French shipyards. The first ship was scheduled to be delivered later this year. Analysts suggested that Mr. Putin first bolstered the militias last week in order to convince Kiev that it had to negotiate, not fight, and that Mr. Putin’s peace plan was meant to reinforce the idea that the overall outcome depended on Moscow.
Russia has been escalating its pressure on Ukraine, demanding that it grant some measure of autonomy to the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, where groups of armed militants have been demanding independence. “Russia wants to show that it is in command of what is happening,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a prominent Russian foreign policy journal. “For Russia, it is important first to prevent the Ukrainians from thinking that they could win militarily, and to accept the separatist leaders as partners in negotiations.”
Until now, the administration in Kiev, the capital, has been reluctant to engage in such talks, arguing that the separatists are a Russian proxy force who do not represent the feelings of most of the people in the east. There is a long road ahead before any real settlement can be reached, analysts noted. Moscow does not fully control the separatists, nor is it clear that Kiev can automatically rein in the armed militias it has unleashed alongside its military in the east.
But in recent days, the Ukrainian military has lost ground in the east. Ukraine has said the reverses were a result of the direct intervention of the Russian military. Russia denies sending men and arms across the border. Vladislav Brig, a senior official in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, said by telephone that the rebels expected Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the entire region as a condition for peace. “The negotiating side here is not Russia. It is the Donetsk People’s Republic,” he said. “We will stop the offensive when Ukrainian troops leave our territory.”
A shaky cease-fire reached in June between the government and the separatists collapsed after 10 days. Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko met in Minsk, Belarus, last week, but no results were announced from that meeting, and within days the separatists opened a new front along the coast of Ukraine. Ukraine has said repeatedly that it will not contemplate a full withdrawal from the Donbass region. “It depends on Russia,” Mr. Scherba said. “Russia is the one that started this and can bring it to an end.”