Putin: Ukraine must withdraw, rebels must halt

A day ahead of a NATO summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his own peace plan for eastern Ukraine, calling on the Russian-backed insurgents there to "stop advancing" and urging Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the region.

Hours earlier, Ukraine had issued a vague statement about agreeing with Putin on cease-fire steps. The separatists rejected the move, saying no cease-fire was possible without a pullback by Ukraine, while Putin's spokesman claimed that Moscow was not in a position to agree to a cease-fire because it was not a party to the conflict.

The back-and-forth came as President Barack Obama arrived in Estonia in a show of solidarity with NATO allies who fear they could be the next target of Russia's aggression. NATO is holding a summit in Wales on Thursday, with plans to approve a rapid-response team to counter the Russian threat.

Putin, speaking in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said he came up with a 7-point peace plan on the plane trip there in which Kiev must withdraw its troops and stop its artillery strikes.

"The warring parties should immediately coordinate and do the following things together," Putin said in televised comments. "The first thing is for the armed forces and insurgents of the south-east of Ukraine to stop active advancing in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Second is for the Ukrainian military to withdraw their troops at a safe distance that will make artillery and other strikes on populated areas impossible," he added.

Putin also urged an unconditional exchange of prisoners and said he expected a final agreement between Kiev and the rebels to be reached Friday at peace talks in Minsk, Belarus.

The Interfax news agency later carried remarks from top rebel commander Miroslav Rudenko, who said "there'll be no sense in a military solution to the conflict" if Kiev was to withdraw its troops.

Stock markets jumped on first reports of a possible cease-fire deal, but later eased back slightly. By early afternoon in Europe, Russia's MICEX benchmark was up 2.7 percent, while the ruble rose 1.4 percent against the U.S. dollar.

Germany's DAX index, which has been particularly sensitive to news regarding the Ukrainian crisis because of the country's economic ties with Russia, was up 1.2 percent.

Rebel leader said earlier this week that they would respect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for autonomy. The rebels previously have called for full independence for their regions or possible absorption into Russia. Putin has ignored their calls for annexation — unlike in March, when Russia annexed Crimea.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has spoken in favor of devolving some of the central government's power to regions, but that is far short of autonomy for the rebel regions.

Obama said it was too early to tell what the announcements Wednesday from Ukraine and Russia meant. He noted previous unsuccessful cease-fire attempts and questioned whether the separatists would abide by a new cease-fire.

"We haven't seen a lot of follow-up on so-called announced cease-fires," Obama said. "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."

Ukraine, NATO and the West have accused Russia of sending its troops and weapons to support the insurgents. Moscow has denied the charge. AP reporters on the ground have run into numerous Russian fighters among the rebels and have seen large convoys of heavy military equipment driving in eastern Ukraine from the direction of Russia.

Over the weekend, the European Union leaders agreed to prepare a new round of sanctions that could be enacted in a week, after NATO accused Russia of sending tanks and troops into southeastern Ukraine.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed nearly 2,600 people and forced over 340,000 to flee their homes, according to the U.N.

Ukraine, Russian aid can enter with Red Cross

With a theatrical flourish, Russia on Tuesday dispatched hundreds of trucks covered in white tarps and sprinkled with holy water on a mission to deliver aid to a desperate rebel-held zone in eastern Ukraine.

The televised sight of the miles-long convoy sparked a show of indignation from the government in Kiev, which insisted any aid must be delivered by the international Red Cross. Ukraine and the West have openly expressed its concern that Moscow intends to use the cover of a humanitarian operation to embark on a military incursion in support of pro-Russian separatists.

Amid those anxieties, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday was set to travel to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in March, where he was to preside over a meeting involving the entire Russian Cabinet and most members of the lower house of parliament.

Putin so far has resisted calls from both pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and nationalists at home to send Russian troops to back the mutiny, a move that would be certain to trigger devastating Western sanctions. But dispatching the convoy sent a powerful visual symbol helping the Kremlin counter criticism from the nationalists who accuse Putin of betrayal.

The convoy provoked controversy as soon as it started moving early Tuesday from the outskirts of Moscow on its long voyage toward the Ukrainian border.

Officials with both the International Committee of the Red Cross and Ukraine's government said they had no information about what the trucks were carrying or where they were headed.

A Ukrainian security spokesman said the convoy of white-canvased vehicles was being managed by the Russian army and could not as a result be allowed into the country. Moscow has rejected the claim, saying that the convoy is organized by the Emergencies Ministry, a non-military agency dealing with humanitarian relief tasks.

The government in Kiev said the Russian trucks could unload their contents at the border and transfer the aid to vehicles leased by the ICRC.

U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said talks are under way for Russia to deliver the aid to the Ukrainian border where it would be transferred to the custody of the ICRC.

She said the U.S. has received confirmation from Ukraine that it is ready to facilitate the arrival of the aid and arrange for its delivery to Luhansk as long as certain conditions were met. Such conditions included that the aid passes appropriate customs clearances, that the ICRC takes custody and responsibility for the delivery in Ukraine, that the Russian-backed separatists allow safe access for the delivery and that the shipments are received at a border crossing point controlled by the Ukrainian government in the Kharkiv region. At least 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the long border between the two neighbors is currently in rebel hands.

The U.S. supports the Ukrainian proposal, Harf said.

Russian authorities said the trucks were loaded with nearly 2,000 metric tons of cargo from baby food to portable generators. Television images showed a Russian Orthodox priest sprinkling holy water on the trucks, some of which bore a red cross, before they departed.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia has bowed to Ukrainian demands that the convoy should enter its territory through a checkpoint designated by Kiev, that Ukrainian number plates be put on trucks there and that Ukrainian representatives should be put on board the trucks alongside Red Cross staff.

However, he said that the idea to unload the trucks on the border and put the cargo on chartered vehicles had come under discussion, but had been rejected for cost reasons.

Valeriy Chaly, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, said a suitable transfer point could be between Russia's Belgorod region and Kharkiv, which has been spared the major unrest seen farther south. Chaly said that any attempt to take humanitarian goods into Ukraine without proper authorization would be viewed as an attack

Ukraine has stressed that the effort to alleviate hardship in the conflict-wracked Luhansk region should be seen as an international undertaking. Officials in Kiev have said Russia's involvement in the humanitarian mission is required to ensure cooperation from separatist rebel forces, who have consistently expressed their allegiance to Moscow.

French President Francois Hollande discussed the aid delivery Tuesday with Putin, saying "he emphasized the strong fears evoked by a unilateral Russian mission in Ukrainian territory." Hollande told Putin that any mission must be multilateral and have the agreement of the ICRC and Ukraine, according to a statement in Paris.

NATO was following the situation closely, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.

"Without the formal, express consent and authorization of the Ukrainian government, any humanitarian intervention would be unacceptable and illegal," she said.

The Western alliance also expressed concern about the possibility of a Russian military operation.

"What we see is thousands of combat-ready troops from Russia being close to the Ukrainian border," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said. "There could be a risk of further intervention."

The fighting between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian government has scarred Luhansk, the region's rebel-held capital, which had a pre-war population of 420,000. On Tuesday, authorities said the city's 250,000 remaining residents have had no electricity or water supplies for 10 days.

"Luhansk is under a de facto blockade: The city continues to be destroyed, and the delivery of foodstuffs, medicine and fuel has been interrupted," the city council said.

As Luhansk remains cut off, the situation looks to also be worsening in the main rebel city of Donetsk, where train links were no longer running Tuesday.

Residents seeking to leave Donetsk were forced to drive to a station in a rebel-held town to the north, Yasynuvata, which had also come under rocket attack in the day. Eyewitnesses said at least three people were killed when a local market and two apartment blocks were shelled.

Putin retaliates over sanctions & more: Putin orders import limits over sanctions

President Vladimir Putin has ordered government agencies to restrict imports of food and agricultural products from the countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

The text of Putin's decree released by the Kremlin on Wednesday says that such imports will be "banned or limited" for one year. The decree doesn't name any specific countries or products, but contains an order to government agencies to spell them out.

The move follows the latest round of sanctions against Russia imposed by the European Union last week, which for the first time targeted entire sectors of the Russian economy.

The U.S. and the EU have accused Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March, of fomenting tensions in eastern Ukraine by supplying arms and expertise to a pro-Moscow insurgency, and have imposed asset freezes and loan bans on a score of individuals and companies.

Russia depends heavily on imported foodstuffs — most of it from the West — particularly in the largest and most prosperous cities such as Moscow.

The order says the limits are being imposed "with the goal of guaranteeing the security of the Russian Federation" and calls for undertaking measures to guard against quick price hikes. Both those clauses appeared to indicate that the scope of the measures wouldn't be wide.

US, EUROPE IMPOSE TOUGH NEW SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

President Barack Obama has announced new economic sanctions against key sectors of the Russian economy in the latest move by the U.S. to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his support for Ukrainian rebels.

Obama says the sanctions target Russia's energy, weapons and finance industries, including big banks.

The U.S. penalties follow other new sanctions that European Union leaders agreed to earlier Tuesday.

The European penalties are similar to sanctions imposed by the U.S. just two weeks ago targeting other big Russian banks, and energy and defense companies.

The U.S. and its European allies blame Russian-supported separatists for destabilizing eastern Ukraine and for this month's downing of a commercial airplane carrying 298 people as it flew over rebel-controlled territory.

Is Russia Committing an Act of War?

Several Western nations, including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, have described Russia's actions in Crimea as an act of aggression. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it was "a clear violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and of international law." Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk went further, calling it "an act of war." Surprisingly, legal experts say what constitutes an act of war is in the eye of the beholder. "What history demonstrates is that an act of war exists when a country says it does," according to Gary Solis, a retired U.S. Marine who teaches at West Point and Georgetown University Law School. "There's no international body to referee and say, ‘This is war.’ So it becomes political." For example, Solis says, "nobody ever said anything about war" when the U.S. Army sent 4,800 soldiers into Mexico in 1916, commanded by Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing, to capture Francisco "Pancho" Villa in retaliation for an attack on a town in New Mexico. By contrast, Japan declared war on the United States in 1941 and bombed the Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after the US imposed an oil embargo, not in retaliation for a military action. In its declaration of war, Japan cited "the direct severance of economic relations, menacing gravely the existence of Our Empire." "What history demonstrates is that an act of war exists when a country says it does." Says Prof. Robert Goldman of American University's Washington College of Law, "You have border incidents occurring all the time, such as between India and Pakistan. Neither side, however, has instituted hostilities." In Ukraine, he said, shots could be fired between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. "But it's going to be a political decision whether the two sides are going to want to treat this as an act of war." Formal declarations of war, for all but rhetorical purposes, ended with the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945. "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State," the charter said. But it took 29 more years for the U.N. to formally define what's now viewed as the international standard — an act of aggression. Among the actions listed: "the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack." In practice, the definition has rarely guided the U.N. Security Council in determining when aggression has been committed. "It has now taken on a new life as a source for discussion of the definition of the individual crime of aggression within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," writes Professor Elizabeth Wilmhurst of University College, London, in a U.N. legal treatise. Since the U.N. Charter was adopted, "the only time armed conflict is lawful under international law is in self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes it," Goldman says. Some legal experts say even though no shots have been fired, Ukraine has a potential case that Russia has already committed an act of aggression, given its show of military force and takeover of part of another nation’s territory. “Most importantly, consider the implications for the charter if the answer were that this were not an armed attack: Ukraine could not lawfully use force against Russian troops to protect territory that undisputedly is part of Ukraine,” writes Ashley Deeks of the University of Virginia Law School on the legal blog “Lawfare.” Other legal scholars, however, say disputes about the legitimacy of Ukraine’s interim government may weaken its case. The use of military force is central to the U.N.'s definition of aggression. It says nothing about the employment of economic sanctions, the course the United States has so far pursued, in addition to diplomatic efforts.

Japan's Leader Stands With U.S. on Ukraine

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan spoke Thursday and agreed that Russia's actions in Ukraine threaten world peace and security, the White House said. The statement said the two leaders "emphasized the importance of preserving Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." It said the Obama and Abe also pledged to work through the International Monetary Fund to support Ukraine's government. Obama is set to visit Japan in April on a trip that will also take him to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. He was forced to skip a trip to Malaysia and the Philippines last fall because of the government shutdown. Abe visited Sochi last month for the opening of the Winter Olympics and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin then.

Ukraine Paralympic Chief Says Will Quit Games if Russia Invades

Ukraine's Paralympic chief said his team would quit the Winter Paralympic Games if Russia invaded his home country, and that he hoped the competition would be able to spread peace instead. "If there is an escalation of the conflict, intervention on the territory of our country, God forbid the worst, we would not be able to stay here, we would go," Valeriy Sushkevich told a news conference on Friday. Russia is holding the Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi at a time when it is being criticizes for its actions in Ukraine's southern region of Crimea, where the West blames Russia for seizing military and government institutions. Moscow says the armed men in Crimea are members of local "self-defense" units. While Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has the right to send in troops to defend Russian compatriots there but that so far he sees no need to do so. Many countries have cancelled plans to send government ministers and members of royal families to the Games because of events in Crimea, where the parliament has voted to join Russia and hold a referendum on its status on March 16.

Putin Not Backing Down on Ukraine Crisis Despite Obama Call

President Vladimir Putin stuck to his position on the escalating crisis in Ukraine, saying Moscow must not ignore calls for help from Russian speakers in that country. During a one-hour call with President Barack Obama on Thursday, Putin said that Ukraine’s government came to power as the result of an “unconstitutional coup” and was “imposing entirely illegitimate decision onto Crimea and the eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine,” according to a statement on the Kremlin’s website. On Thursday, the parliament of the semi-autonomous and largely pro-Moscow region of Crimea voted to break away from Ukraine and join Russia, and set a date for a referendum on the subject for March 16. The government of Ukraine was “imposing entirely illegitimate decisions onto Crimea and the eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine,” according to the Kremlin’s statement. “Russia cannot ignore calls for help on this matter and is responding accordingly, in full compliance with international law.” The White House earlier said that President Barack Obama had told Putin that the Russian incursion into Crimea was a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and that the United States and its European allies had “taken several steps in response.”

Ukraine Crisis: What's the Obama administration's next move?

The U.S. has already suspended military engagement with Russia. It has also pulled out of prep meeting for the G-8 summit in Sochi and is threatening to boot Russia from the G-8 altogether. Putin, for his part, seems unfazed. Tough economic sanctions are probably the next items on the U.S. agenda, according to William Pomeranz, deputy director for the Kennan Institute, a Russia-focused group at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan policy organization in Washington. "I think there will be a strong, growing demand in Congress and potentially across the U.S. itself for heightened sanctions against Russia," Pomeranz said. "Russia is one of the few issues that brings out bipartisan support. We're going to see growing momentum for sanctions." House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce on Tuesday called for "crippling sanctions on Russian high-ranking officials, state-owned banks and commercial enterprises, and key individuals behind the Russian intervention." According to The Associated Press, the U.S. on Tuesday was already preparing sanctions against Russia unless Moscow deescalated the crisis and called its troops back to their barracks on the peninsula.

What will Ukraine need to rebound? In Kiev on Tuesday, Kerry paid tribute to those who died in the bloody protests last month — and pledged $1 billion in a loan guarantee program to Ukraine as the country tries to stave off bankruptcy. "In addition to making sure the election takes place on time, Ukraine is going to need significant financial aid," Pomeranz said. "It will likely come from the European Union and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and international financial institutions." Yatsenyuk on Tuesday called on Western powers to dole out political and economic support as the Kiev stock market plummeted a record 12 percent and the Ukrainian national currency dropped to new lows against the dollar and euro. Weiss said that the European Union — perhaps fronted by Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel — will be a "key actor" in the coming days and weeks. And the IMF will "probably provide some sort of 'band-aid' support that carries Ukraine to the May elections."

Putin asks parliament to use military in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked parliament for permission to use the country's military in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Saturday. Putin said the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea. "I'm submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country," Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. He sent the request to the Russian legislature's upper house, which has to approve the motion, according to the constitution. In Crimea, the pro-Russian regional prime minister had earlier claimed control of the military and police there and asked Putin for help in keeping peace, sharpening the discord between the two Slavic neighbor countries. It was the latest escalation following the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president last week by a protest movement aimed at turning Ukraine toward the European Union and away from Russia. Armed men described as Russian troops took control of key airports and a communications center in Crimea on Friday. Ukraine has accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" — a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis, and raised fears that Moscow is moving to intervene on the strategic peninsula where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea is mainly Russian-speaking. Crimean's prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards in the region will answer only to his orders. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk opened a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Kiev, by calling on Russia not to provoke discord in Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea. "We call on the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."