Russia’s Putin calls for postponement of referendum in eastern Ukraine
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to take conciliatory steps Wednesday to ease tensions in Ukraine, calling for pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country to postpone a planned Sunday referendum that could exacerbate violence and saying that a May 25 presidential election whose legitimacy the Kremlin had previously questioned was now “a movement in the right direction.”
The remarks marked a significant shift in tone from the hard line that Putin and other top Russian officials had taken for weeks toward the acting government in Kiev, which took power after pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled in February in the face of popular protests.
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Putin also said the Russian military has pulled back from the Ukrainian border, where troops massed in recent weeks for exercises that the Ukrainian government considered threatening.
However, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that “we’ve seen no change” in Russia’s posture along the border. U.S. officials have said about 40,000 Russian troops were deployed there.
“All of us are interested in settling this crisis, in settling it as soon as possible, accounting for the interests of all Ukrainian citizens irrespective of their place of residence,” Putin said.
“We are asking representatives in the southeast of Ukraine and supporters of federalization to postpone the referendum scheduled for the 11th of May,” Putin told reporters in Moscow. Speaking alongside Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), after ameeting about the Ukrainian crisis, Putin said that postponing the referendum would help create the “necessary conditions of dialogue” with the government in Kiev.
Addressing the issue of Russian troops, Putin said: “They kept telling us they were concerned about our troops on the Ukrainian border. We pulled them back. They are no longer staying on the Ukrainian border but are in their bases and at training ranges.”
He gave no indication of the location of those bases and training ranges.
Putin called for the Ukrainian government to stop attempts to retake cities from separatists in eastern Ukraine, saying that the military action was impeding dialogue between the two sides.
It was not immediately clear whether the pro-Russian separatists would indeed reschedule their May 11 referendum. One separatist leader said earlier Wednesday that the referendum would aim to establish an independent, Russian-friendly state in territory that is currently Ukrainian.
The separatists called the referendum to decide whether the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, should become a sovereign republic. Some of the separatists operate under the banner of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.”
A spokeswoman for the Donetsk People’s Republic who gave her name only as Clavia said the group’s leaders are aware of Putin’s comments and will meet to discuss their next move. She said they would hold a news conference Thursday to give a response.
Roman Lyagin, chairman of the Central Election Committee of the People’s Republic, said the referendum could be postponed if the separatist government decided to do so.
“We are preparing a referendum on schedule,” he told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “But if the leadership of the Donetsk Republic decides to postpone the date of the referendum, we will have to agree with it.” Lyagin added that the Ukrainian presidential election will not be held in Donetsk.
Putin’s statements came after a week of escalating violence as Ukrainian authorities attempted to regain control over the east, largely without success. Clashes Friday between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian activists in Odessa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, ended with hundreds of pro-Russian protesters trapped in a burning building. More than 40 people died. Many Ukrainians fear fresh violence on Victory Day, the annual May 9 holiday that holds deep significance for Russians because it marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union during World War II.
Putin also expressed qualified support for Ukraine’s May 25 presidential election, a vote aimed at legitimizing a new government that would replace the current interim administration, which has struggled to control its own security forces. Kremlin officials had previously said they would consider the election illegitimate if it were held in a climate of violence.
“The presidential election itself is a movement in the right direction, but only if all citizens of Ukraine understand that their rights are guaranteed,” Putin said, referring to concerns by ethnic Russians that their freedoms could be curtailed by Ukrainian nationalists.
Burkhalter said the OSCE would propose a roadmap for Ukraine within hours that would include a cease-fire, a de-escalation of tensions, dialogue and elections.
Earlier Wednesday, Ukrainian forces briefly recaptured a separatist-controlled government building in Mariupol, a key industrial city on the Sea of Azov, then abruptly surrendered it to the pro-Russian militants.
The retreat dealt an embarrassing blow to Ukrainian authorities’ attempts to regain control over their territory in the restive eastern part of the country, where the separatists have seized several cities.
The battle for Mariupol began Tuesday night with a gun battle lasting more than an hour between armed separatists and police in a small town outside the city. One rebel was killed and two captured, including Igor Kakidzyanov, the defense minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, police said. Rebels and police accused each other of starting the fighting.
In response, separatists burned tires and blocked roads in the Mariupol city center Tuesday evening. In a bid to regain control of the city, Ukraine’s security forces then raided the separatist-held city council at dawn Wednesday, firing tear gas and arresting the men who were guarding it. A Ukrainian flag briefly fluttered over the council building in the morning, while police conducted a “crime scene examination” and started taking down barricades around the structure.
But when a large pro-Russian crowd turned up at the building, Ukrainian authorities melted away and let separatists retake control without a struggle, witnesses said.
“Police are trying to explain that it is illegal to participate in mass riots, but ordinary people will not suffer from the police,” police spokeswoman Yulia Lafazan said. She could not say why police gave the building back to the separatists.
At one police station in the city, as many as 100 people gathered to demand the release of 16 separatists. For a couple of hours, they argued with troops impassively guarding the station, shouting “fascists” and “killers” at them.
But when members of the crowd tried to open the gate of the compound and climb a fence surrounding it, the atmosphere deteriorated quickly. The troops fired into the ground and into the air and detonated smoke grenades. They later left the building with guns at the ready, causing the crowd to scramble for cover and forcing some to lie on the ground.
Medics said three men were injured. Two of them told medics that soldiers struck them in the head with rifle butts. Two trucks containing more soldiers turned up and evacuated their comrades.
If authorities manage to gain control of Mariupol, it would deal a blow to separatists’ plans for the referendum. But with the government and separatists routinely swapping territory in the east in recent days, the rapid turnover in Mariupol on Wednesday appeared to be just the latest in the back and forth.
A separatist leader in the Donetsk region said Wednesday that if residents decide in favor of independence from Kiev, he would seek to build a new state that would be independent both from Ukraine and Russia.
“We plan to unite . . . on the principles of federalism to form a new state called Novorossia,” or New Russia, Miroslav Rudenko, a co-chairman of the separatist movement in the Donetsk region, told Russia’s Interfax news agency Wednesday.
Speaking before Putin made his surprise call for postponement of the separatist referendum, British Foreign Secretary William Hague charged during a visit to Kiev on Wednesday that the Putin government appeared intent on disrupting Ukraine’s upcoming elections or creating a pretext for military intervention. Hague also commended efforts by the interim Ukrainian government to restore order while exercising restraint and preparing for the national elections.
“There should be no doubt that the Russian government is trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation in the east and south of Ukraine and that the immediate goal is to disrupt elections on the 25th of May — although, of course, they may also be trying to provide a pretext for intervention by using civilians as cover,” Hague said.
Hague told reporters in Kiev that the Ukrainian government has shown determination to go forward with the elections despite what he said were Russia’s attempts to disrupt them. He said that an international group of about 1,000 election monitors would observe the balloting, including about 100 from the Britain. His country was also providing “technical know-how,” Hague said.
“A failure to hold those elections would be very serious, I think, and would show from outside the holding of a democratic election can be undermined.” That would be “a terrible blow for democracy,” Hague said, adding: “And once postponed, who knows when they would be held?”
Ukraine’s central bank said, meanwhile, that it had received the first $3.2 billion tranche of emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund, helping to prop up the government’s teetering finances.
Kunkle reported from Kiev. Denyer reproted from Mariupol. Alex Ryabchyn in Donetsk and Anna Nemtsova in Odessa contributed to this report. washingtonpost
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