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president Putin Signals Great Concern over Ukraine, Speaks with President Obama
15 April 2014
(EIRNS) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov today told reporters that Putin "was watching how the situation develops, with great concern," referring to eastern Ukraine. "Unfortunately," said Peskov, "a great number of messages, addressed to Putin personally, are arriving from regions in eastern Ukraine, with requests to help, to intervene in one form or another." Peskov declined to elaborate about what might follow from the President’s concern. Shortly before midnight, Moscow Time, the Kremlin announced that Putin had spoken by phone with U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the Russian account, Putin told Obama that the protests in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkov, Slavyansk, and other locations had resulted from "the lack of desire or ability on the part of the leaders in Kiev, to take into consideration the interests of the Russian and Russian-speaking population." Putin called on Obama "to use the possibilities at the Americans’ disposal, to the utmost degree, to prevent the use of force leading to bloodshed." The Kremlin reported that Obama expressed concern over alleged Russian interventions in southeastern Ukraine, which Putin refuted as based on inaccurate information. Putin responded that Kiev should be working on bringing the country’s main political forces and regions into an open process of drafting a new Constitution, ensuring civil rights, a federative organization of the state, and neutrality. They talked in terms of preparations for the quadrilateral talks in Geneva on April 17, among the EU, Russia, the USA, and Ukraine. [Rachel Douglas] See also: Ukraine at the crossroads / L’Ukraine à la croisée des chemins |