French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in foreground, will meet with their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts Wednesday. File Photo by Brian Kersey/ UPI. |
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BERLIN, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Shelling resumed in Debaltseve, Ukraine, as diplomats began preparations for a crucial summit meeting and Russian President Vladimir Putin again blamed the West for igniting the Ukrainian conflict.
A two-day weekend cease-fire, to which neither Ukrainian troops or pro-Russian separatists fully adhered, ended Saturday in Debaltseve, on the eastern front, and Ukrainian military officials said an increase in separatist forces was observed. The ruined city of 26,000, 45 miles from the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, has seen fighting and artillery fire for seven months, and 10 days without tap water, electricity or heat as temperatures fell below freezing over the weekend, the New York Times reported Monday. Evacuees by the hundreds have arrived at Slovyansk, 55 miles away, in the past several days, and Debaltseve's population is now about 3,000 mostly elderly residents.
Over 5,000 people have been killed this far in the conflict.
The renewed assaults come as preparations for the start Wednesday summit meeting in Minsk, Belarus, are underway. President Putin has insisted each side in the talks -- Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France -- must have clearly-formed positions, something which has stopped previous peace attempts, before the summit in Berlin can begin. The diplomacy is regarded as a last chance before the conflict widens, and comes as the United States is considering arms shipments to Ukraine. A failure of the summit could collapse U.S.-European Union consensus on economic sanctions against Russia.
EU sanctions must be renewed by March to continue, and Monday the Foreign Affairs Council at the European Union agreed on additional sanctions, a spokeswoman reported, adding their implementation would be delayed until Feb. 16, after the diplomatic effort.
"This (the summit) is really just a desperate effort on the part of the West and Ukraine to keep hope alive and for Russia and the separatists to buy time for their next move and for moving in reinforcements," said Joerg Forbrig, of Berlin's German Marshall Fund, told Bloomberg News. "I don't think these talks will result in a settlement. At the most there will be some kind of temporary cease-fire."
Putin, prior to a visit to Egypt, told the Egyptian state-run newspaper Al-Ahram the Ukraine conflict was begun by the West, as NATO broke agreements not to expand and obligated some European countries to choose between NATO or Russian spheres of influence.
He spoke of efforts "to tear states which had been parts of the former USSR off Russia and to prompt them to make an artificial choice between Russia and Europe."
