This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/biden-pledges-us-support-for-fair-elections-in-ukraine-and-to-weather-russian-economic-pressure/2014/04/22/461781ee-c9dd-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html?wprss=rss_world

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
With eye on Russia, U.S. troops to conduct exercises in Eastern Europe To buoy shaky Ukrainian government, U.S. pledging aid and sending troops to E. Europe
(about 4 hours later)
The Pentagon announced Tuesday that it would send about 600 troops to Poland and the three Baltic states to conduct exercises and training in response to Russia’s involvement in nearby Ukraine. KIEV, Ukraine — Vice President Biden pledged additional American aid Tuesday to help the government here, as the Pentagon announced that it would respond to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine by sending about 600 U.S. troops to conduct exercises and training in Poland and the three Baltic states.
“Since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, we have been constantly looking at ways to reassure allies and partners,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters. “If there’s a message to Moscow, it is the same exact message, that we take our obligations very, very seriously on the continent of Europe.” The announcements indicated robust U.S. support for the tenuous new Ukrainian government, even as Biden warned the political class here that it must confront “the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system right now.”
He said a company of about 150 paratroopers based in Vicenza, Italy, will arrive in Poland on Wednesday. Three other paratrooper companies from the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team will arrive in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia no later than Monday, Kirby added. Meeting with Ukrainian lawmakers, Biden expressed sympathy for the challenges they confront, squeezed between the expectations of protesters in the capital and by pro-Russia activists in eastern Ukraine, where armed groups have occupied public buildings and are demanding a referendum to consider seceding into autonomous states.
He said the exercises were expected to last about a month, but that the paratroopers would be replaced by other U.S. troops on a rotational basis. “What we’re after here is a persistent presence,” he added. “You face very daunting problems, and some might say, humiliating threats,” Biden said. “But the opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, getting it right, is within your grasp. And we want to be your partner and friend in the project.”
Biden said the U.S. aid would help Ukraine defy Russian economic pressure and stage a presidential election May 25, a vote he called perhaps “the most important in Ukraine’s history.”
The goal of a united Ukraine seemed distant Tuesday in the impoverished industrial towns of the country’s east, where an uprising against Kiev, inspired by Russia’s annexation of Crimea last month, threatens to not only derail the election but also splinter the state.
In Lugansk, a separatist cadre opposed to the central government in Kiev was fortifying its position in the Ukraine State Security building that it had stormed more than two weeks ago.
The facility contained a large armory, including explosives. The men, heavily armed with Kalashnikov rifles and grenades, were holed up in dank rooms protected by sand­bags, chain-smoking and listening to pro-Russia pop music. They called themselves the People’s Army of the East.
“As long as we enjoy the support of our citizens, we won’t leave until our demands are met,” said Sergiy Gerachov, one of the commanders, dressed in fatigues and sprawled on a couch with a pair of pistols holstered around his waist and a Soviet war medal pinned to his chest.
State Security officials in Kiev say groups such as the People’s Army of the East are being directed by Moscow, with support on the ground from Russian military special forces­ and intelligence agents.
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, director of Security Service of Ukraine, speaking Tuesday on a YouTube link with the Atlantic Council, said: “There are up to seven or eight groups of people in Lugansk. Mostly they are veterans of Afghanistan, some of them former Ukrainian special forces­ from the Soviet times. Some of them are young men from radical organizations.”
Across eastern Ukraine, Nalyvaichenko said, there are 30 officers of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, known as GRU, “and hundreds and hundreds of those we call agents and the network of this subversive and hostile activity.”
“They are well-armed. They prepared for years to do what they are doing now,” he said. “In the last month and a half, we as the Security Service managed to arrest and detain 21 of them. They are agents. There are three officers of GRU, whom we keep in Kiev behind bars.”
Nalyvaichenko said that U.S. intelligence is being shared with the agency and that the United States has started “real, real cooperation in the security effort.”
Despite a U.S.-brokered agreement last week between Ukraine and Russia to de-escalate tensions, little has been done to corral the pro-Russia groups in the eastern region.
Russian flags fly over a few dozen government buildings, city halls and police stations in eastern Ukraine. Some of the buildings remain heavily fortified, taken over by the activists. Other buildings are open for business, and residents renew driver’s licenses or register births, as only a small group of unarmed self-defense militia members loiter outside.
Biden, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s move into Crimea two months ago, demanded Tuesday that Russia push the groups under its sway to vacate the government buildings they have occupied and to send representatives to work with international monitors in the volatile region.
“It’s time for Russia to stop talking and start acting,” Biden said. “We need to see these concrete steps, and we need to see them without delay.”
Biden met for more than an hour in Kiev with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an administration favorite. Afterward, Yatsenyuk said the next president must carry out constitutional reforms — including providing Ukraine’s various regions authority over budgets and over cultural decisions about language — and promote the nation’s integration with Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized such a move.
Russia “should not behave as gangsters in this modern century,” Yatsenyuk said, speaking with Biden by his side.
Biden concluded his visit by announcing that the United States would provide an additional $50 million in assistance to Ukraine, including $11.4 million to help conduct the election, as well as expertise to assist Ukraine in reducing its reliance on Russian energy supplies.
Biden also promised a modest increase of $8 million in non­lethal security aid to the Ukrainian armed ­forces and border guards, who have been confronting pro-Russia groups in the country’s eastern regions. The aid comes on top of a $10 million package announced earlier.
In Washington, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that the troop deployment would begin Wednesday, when about 150 paratroopers based in Vicenza, Italy, arrive in Poland. Three other paratrooper companies from the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team will arrive in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia no later than Monday, Kirby added.
“Since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, we have been constantly looking at ways to reassure allies and partners,” Kirby said. “If there’s a message to Moscow, it is the same exact message, that we take our obligations very, very seriously on the continent of Europe.”
He said that the exercises were expected to last about a month but that the paratroopers would be replaced by other U.S. troops on a rotational basis. “What we’re after here is a persistent presence,” he added.
Although Poland and the Baltic states are members of NATO, Kirby said the troop deployment was not part of a NATO mission. Leaders of those countries have been pressing the Obama administration to enhance the U.S. military presence inside their borders as an added deterrence to Russia.Although Poland and the Baltic states are members of NATO, Kirby said the troop deployment was not part of a NATO mission. Leaders of those countries have been pressing the Obama administration to enhance the U.S. military presence inside their borders as an added deterrence to Russia.
“It’s more than symbology,” Kirby said. “The kind of work that we’re going to be doing is real infantry training. And that’s not insignificant.”“It’s more than symbology,” Kirby said. “The kind of work that we’re going to be doing is real infantry training. And that’s not insignificant.”
The announcement came as Vice President Biden, traveling in Ukraine, pledged American support to help the government stage a successful presidential election next month and to defy Russian economic pressure. Kirby said the troop deployments could expand to other allied countries in the region, but he did not elaborate. In addition, he acknowledged that NATO has long been planning to hold military exercises in Ukraine this summer.
Biden concluded his brief visit — one devoted largely to providing moral support to a country in political crisis — by announcing that the United States would provide an additional $50 million in assistance to Ukraine, including $11.4 million to help conduct the election scheduled for May 25, as well as expertise to assist Ukraine in reducing its reliance on Russian energy supplies. Booth reported from Lugansk. Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock in Washington contributed to this report.
He also announced a modest increase of $8 million in nonlethal security aid to the Ukrainian armed forces and border guards, who are now confronting pro-Russian groups in the country’s eastern regions. The aid includes bomb-disposal equipment, vehicles and radio and other communications gear, and it comes in addition to a $10 million package announced earlier.
The vice president’s presence in Kiev was the heart of his message, though, and it was directed both at Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s own leadership. In meetings with Ukrainian lawmakers, civil society leaders and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Biden denounced Russia’s annexation of Crimea last month and its support for armed groups occupying government buildings in the east, as well as the corruption he described as endemic to Ukrainian politics.
Speaking to a group of lawmakers that included three presidential candidates, Biden said the political unrest in Kiev and Russian threats in eastern border regions present a “second opportunity to make good on the promise of the Orange Revolution,” the 2004 post-election uprising that led to the nullification of a rigged presidential vote won by pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych.
The demonstrations that began in Kiev last November also targeted Yanukovych, who was elected president in 2010. Supported by Russia, Yanukovych fled the country in February, although he and his Russian patrons say he was illegally overthrown and remains Ukraine’s legitimate leader.
The election next month will usher in a new president and, U.S. officials hope, give new momentum to a constitutional reform process designed to extend more political authority to Ukraine’s various regional governments. In a pair of appearances there, Biden called the May 25 vote perhaps “the most important in Ukraine’s history.”
In his meeting with Ukrainian lawmakers, Biden expressed sympathy for the challenging political situation they face, squeezed by public protests and by pro-Russian forces demanding a vote to separate from Ukraine in some eastern regions. But he also urged them to confront what he called “the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system right now.”
“You face very daunting problems, and some might say, humiliating threats,” Biden said. “But the opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, getting it right, is within your grasp. And we want to be your partner and friend in the project. We want to assist.”
Biden met for more than an hour with Yatsenyuk, an administration favorite. Afterward, Yatsenyuk said Russia’s support for self-proclaimed separatists in Ukraine’s east is an effort to disrupt the presidential election.
The prime minister said the next president must carry out constitutional reforms — including providing Ukraine’s various regions authority over budgets and over cultural decisions about language — and must promote the nation’s integration with Europe. Putin has criticized such a move, but Yatsenyuk said Tuesday with Biden at his side that Russia “should not behave as gangsters in this modern century.”
“We will carry out the presidential election,” Yatsenyuk said, adding that the vote will be held under the watch of international observers.
Biden is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s move into Crimea two months ago, and he reiterated in appearances there that the United States would stand by the Ukrainian government as seeks to contain ethnic unrest in the east.
A U.S.-brokered agreement between Ukraine and Russia to de-escalate those tensions was reached last week in Geneva. But so far U.S. and Ukrainian officials say little has been done to corral the pro-Russian groups in the Donetsk region.
“It’s time for Russia to stop talking and start acting — act on the commitments they made,” Biden said. He demanded that Russia urge the groups to vacate the government buildings they have occupied and send representatives to work with international monitors in the volatile region.
“We need to see these concrete steps, and we need to see them without delay,” Biden said. “We will not allow this to be an open-ended process.”
Before departing, Biden stopped at the eight-century-old St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kiev’s old town. The monastery sits a few blocks above the Maidan, the square that demonstrators have occupied since November in a show of protest against government corruption and Russian influence.
When Ukrainian security forces entered the square in February, hundreds of demonstrators, many of them students, were injured and others killed. The monastery served as a sanctuary for the wounded.
Today a makeshift shrine of plywood, tire and tarps, topped by the flags of Ukraine, Britain, the United States and other nations, stands in front of the graceful pale-blue church in their honor.
Wilson reported from Kiev.