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Tense U.S.-Russia meeting over Ukrainian cease-fire

By Ed Adamczyk
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of the U.S. State Department/Facebook
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of the U.S. State Department/Facebook

GENEVA, Switzerland, March 3 (UPI) -- Secretary of State John Kerry emerged from a tense meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday expressing hope that the Ukrainian cease-fire would take full effect and threatening additional sanctions if it didn't.

After the 80-minute meeting, Kerry expressed hope that Russia and the Ukrainian separatists will immediately honor the cease-fire agreed upon in February.

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He threatened additional economic sanctions if conflict continued and if monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were not allowed free access to eastern Ukraine.

Kerry also mentioned the fall of the city of Debaltseve to the separatists, and a rebel advance on the city of Mariupol, both of which occurred after the cease-fire went into effect.

"There's been a kind of cherry-picking, a piecemeal selectivity, to the application" of the agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus, Kerry said. "As we all know, shooting, shelling has still been going on. There is not yet a full cease-fire."

Lavrov contended results of the cease-fire are apparent, saying, "The cease-fire has been consolidated, heavy weapons are being withdrawn."

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The meeting, called to reinforce the cease-fire, had an air of tension. Both Kerry and Lavrov posed for pictures prior to the discussion, but demonstrated little friendliness.

In the past week, Kerry publicly accused Lavrov of lying about Russia's involvement in Ukraine; the United Nations reported over 6,000 people have been killed in the conflict since it began in February 2014; and a vocal critic of Russia's Ukrainian policy, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed outside the Kremlin by an unknown assailant.

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