EU halts new Russian and Ukrainian sanctions ahead of peace talks

Russian president Vladimir Putin said he would not tolerate any ultimatums over Ukraine after a report said Germany had given him until Wednesday to agree a peace plan or face new sanctions.

A firefighter at work after a residential block on the outskirts of Donetsk caught fire following a shelling yesterday. Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

BRUSSELS // The European Union said on Monday it would temporarily halt further sanctions on Russians and Ukrainian separatists ahead of possible peace talks later this week.

The announcement came as German chancellor Angela Merkel met with US president Barack Obama at the White House in a public display of unity despite disagreement over arming Ukrainian government forces.

Ms Merkel was to brief the president on upcoming negotiations planned for Wednesday in Minsk, Belarus. The talks are aimed at ending the escalating bloodshed in eastern Ukraine and are due to involve the leaders of German, France, Russia and Ukraine itself.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russian president Vladimir Putin would not tolerate any ultimatums over Ukraine after a report said Germany had given him until Wednesday to agree a peace plan or face new sanctions.

“We’ve already said everything about the tone of the negotiations,” Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Russian radio. “No one has ever spoken or can speak to the president in an ultimatum-like tone much as one would like to.”

Meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers decided on Monday to delay placing asset freezes and travel bans on 19 more individuals, including five Russians, for their actions in eastern Ukraine. They said the situation would be reviewed the following Monday.

“The principle of the sanctions is maintained but the application will depend on what happens on the ground,” said French foreign minister Laurent Fabius. “We will see if the meeting has taken place, what kind of results there are. And then we will be able to draw conclusions.”

The names of the individuals were kept confidential for now, but diplomatic sources said they include Russian deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov.

There was no discussion of lifting any other sanctions if the Minsk talks go well, diplomats said.

The EU foreign ministers are throwing their weight behind fresh diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, rejecting calls by some US politicians to provide lethal defensive weapons to Kiev.

But German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier cautioned that the Minsk meeting is not set in stone yet. He said diplomats from all sides were meeting on Monday behind closed doors in Berlin to try to pave the way.

“We hope that the outstanding issues can be resolved to a point that a Minsk meeting would hold some promise and can produce the first steps toward defusing the situation and a ceasefire,” he said, adding “[but] it’s not yet certain.”

The fighting in eastern Ukraine continued on Monday with a powerful explosion setting a chemical plant on fire outside the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Separatists said the plant was hit by government shelling

No casualties or damage elsewhere were immediately reported from the blast, but rebel official Eduard Basurin said that heavy shelling in the city overnight had killed two people.

Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, meanwhile, said on Monday that about 1,500 Russian troops had crossed the border into Ukraine via rebel-controlled border posts over the weekend.

* Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse