Russia urges Ukraine to extend ‘ceasefire’ with rebels

Russia has urged Ukraine to extend a supposed ceasefire with pro-Moscow rebels, despite continued clashes and the death of nine servicemen when militants shot down one of Kiev’s military helicopters.

The Kremlin appealed for the so-called truce to continue beyond its current Friday morning deadline, as top US and EU officials told Russia to do more to stop fighters and weapons crossing its border into the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin "advocated a continuation of the ceasefire and the creation of a substantive negotiation process", in a four-way telephone conversation last night with German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande, and Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.

Mr Poroshenko’s office said they discussed the possibility of observers from the 57-state Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitoring the Ukrainian-Russian border during the ceasefire.

Continued attacks

Kiev accuses the rebels, who have Russian volunteers fighting in their ranks and use some advanced Russian weaponry, of continuing to attack government troops and of shooting down a helicopter on Tuesday, killing all nine servicemen onboard.

The militants, who want eastern Ukraine to join Russia, say state forces are targeting them with heavy weaponry.

“We have a number of worrying developments . . . but we are fully committed to the peace plan,” said Ukraine’s foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin.

“Extending or not extending the ceasefire is the competence of the president,” he added.

The Ukrainian, Russian, German and French leaders are expected to converse again today, when the EU begins a summit in Brussels. Diplomats suggested earlier that tougher sanctions against Russia could be imposed at the meeting, in response to Moscow’s alleged destablisation of eastern Ukraine, and despite deep divisions among EU states.

No such measures are now likely to be implemented, given Mr Putin’s stated support for Ukraine’s peace plan and his request that Russia’s parliament withdraw permission granted for him to invade Ukraine to protect Russians there.

Senators revoked that authorisation yesterday, but sceptics say Russia does not need to invade formally to keep eastern Ukraine in chaos: it can continue to allow weapons and fighters to cross the border, and could introduce troops as “peacekeepers” in response to requests from the rebels.

“It is an important – a great – step, but it can be reversed in 10 minutes,” US secretary of state John Kerry said of the Russian senators’ vote.

Calling on Mr Putin to take “concrete” steps to ease Ukraine’s crisis, Mr Kerry said: “We are not announcing a new round of sanctions today, but we are going to continue to take steps to prepare in the event that the circumstances on the ground warrant those sanctions.”