Ukraine soldier killed in clashes despite ceasefire

The latest attempt to silence the guns in Ukraine was agreed after more than 30 people were killed in a sharp uptick of violence in early February between government forces and Russian-backed separatists.

Peskov said Putin’s decree was a humanitarian gesture to help struggling residents in the rebel regions who have faced a transportation blockade imposed by Ukrainian nationalists.

But Hug warned Monday that conditions for a flare-up were present as “heavy weapons remain on both sides of the contact area where they shouldn’t be”. “There is no reason for aggravating the situation”, Peskov said.

“These aren’t the documents of an officially recognized state”.

“The Ukrainian authorities are doing all they can to make life as difficult as possible for the residents of those territories and make it as hard as possible for them to enjoy the most basic rights and freedoms”, Lavrov said.

A foreign ministry spokesman added that the German authorities would not recognise the documents.

Sanctions should be put in place against Ukraine, which is trying to derail the Minsk agreements and which is responsible for people’s deaths rather than against Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) International Affairs Committee, told TASS on Tuesday.

Moscow’s move was “troubling and inconsistent with [the] agreed goals” of the faltering Minsk peace accords, the USA embassy in Kiev wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

Ukraine has criticised the move, calling it a violation of the two-year peace deal.

Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, denied prior knowledge of the sealed plan, which includes a suggestion that Ukraine lease Crimea to Russian Federation, which annexed the region in 2014.

Artemenko, who aspires to lead Ukraine and claims to have support from Russian president Vladimir Putin, says he has evidence proving corruption that would oust the country’s current president, Petro Poroshenko.

The occurrence of the meeting, first reported Sunday by the New York Times, suggests that some in the region aligned with Russian Federation have been seeking to use Trump business associates as an informal conduit to a new president who has signaled a desire to forge warmer relations with Russian Federation.

The idea that Russia could take Crimea on lease for some term is absurd as the Black Sea peninsula is a Russian region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on February 20.

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was at the center of a bombshell New York Times report published Sunday that said he hand-delivered a “peace” plan for Russian Federation and Ukraine to former national security adviser Michael Flynn before Flynn was asked to resign.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied having knowledge of the plan Monday, telling journalists: “How can Russian Federation lease its own region?”