Russia’s Putin calls for postponement of referendum in eastern Ukraine
Putin calls for postponement of separatists’ referendum in eastern Ukraine
(4 months later)
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.”
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to take steps Wednesday to pull Ukraine back from an escalating cycle of violence, asking pro-Russian separatists in the country to postpone a Sunday referendum on independence and indicating that he may be willing to recognize a national election later this month.
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.
The statements marked a significant shift in tone from the hard line that Putin and other top Russian officials have taken for months toward the acting government in Kiev, which took power after pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych fled in February in the face of popular protests.
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.
But key questions remained about whether Putin’s efforts would actually rein in violence, including whether Russia retained control over the bands of armed separatists who have taken over cities across eastern Ukraine and whether his proposals were palatable to the Ukrainians.
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, speaking in Moscow alongside Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, who is leading negotiations as chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen later echoed that assessment in a tweet, saying that “we haven’t seen any signs” of a Russian troop pullback.
Putin said that putting off the referendum on whether to establish independence from Kiev would help create the “necessary conditions of dialogue” with the acting central government.
[Timeline: Here are the key events in Ukraine’s ongoing crisis.]
Putin’s statements came after a week of escalating violence as Ukrainian authorities attempted to regain control over the east, largely without success. 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.
“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.
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. Kremlin officials had previously said they would consider the election illegitimate if it were held in a climate of violence, while the United States and its allies had warned against delay or disruption.
“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 a meeting about the Ukrainian crisis, Putin said that postponing the referendum would help create the “necessary conditions of dialogue” with the government in Kiev.
The Obama administration offered a muted response to Putin’s remarks, emphasizing the need for actions in addition to words.
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.”
“We would certainly welcome a meaningful and transparent withdrawal” of Russian troops deployed along Ukraine’s border, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “To date, there has been no evidence that such a withdrawal has taken place.”
He gave no indication of the location of those bases and training ranges.
Ukraine had never recognized the planned referendum as legitimate, and officials in Kiev reacted dismissively to Putin’s move. Even before Putin’s request for a delay, the referendum’s success had been in doubt, with each city organizing its own balloting and popular enthusiasm limited at best.
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.
The separatists called the referendum to decide whether the eastern region of Ukraine, the country’s industrial heartland, should declare independence and become the sovereign republic of Novorossiya, the czarist-era name for part of the area.
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.
It was not immediately clear whether the separatists would heed Putin’s request for a postponement. According to Reuters, Denis Pushilin, a separatist leader in Donetsk, said, “We have the utmost respect for President Putin. If he considers that necessary, we will of course discuss it.’’
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.”
Apart from the Sunday vote, the Kremlin has pushed for a version of federalization in Ukraine that would keep eastern Ukraine, with its large ethnic Russian population, within Russia’s orbit. Ukrainian leaders in Kiev have said they would not agree to such a move, which would delegate authority over law enforcement and foreign policy to the country’s regions.
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.
Putin said a presidential election would be “a movement in the right direction, but only if all citizens of Ukraine understand that their rights are guaranteed.’’
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.
The Russian leader also said Wednesday that he had pulled back some forces from Ukraine’s borders. But the claim was immediately contradicted by U.S. and NATO officials, who said they had “seen no change” in Russian troops in the region.
“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.
“We would know,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steven C. Warren told reporters. Senior Russian defense officials also said late last month that they were pulling troops back but did not appear to do so, Western officials said.
Ukraine’s interim government remained mostly quiet Wednesday in response to Putin’s remarks. But Andriy Parubiy, who heads the government’s National Security and Defense Council, gave them a chilly reception, saying they showed that the Kremlin has been stoking the separatist movement all along and that Ukraine’s recent efforts to restore order in the east had changed the Kremlin’s calculations.
Andriy Parubiy, who leads Ukraine’s equivalent of the National Security Council, said Putin’s remarks should be seen as confirmation that the Kremlin has been stoking the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine all along. If Putin was making a concession, Parubiy said, it was because of the military campaign that Ukrainian forces have launched in recent days to regain control in the east.
“This is also evidence of the fact that the Ukrainian government is going in the right direction and successfully protecting its national interests,” Parubiy said in an interview. He called on the international community to act in concert to stop what he described as Putin’s maniacal idea “to renew the empire in a post-Soviet environment.”
“This is also evidence of the fact that the Ukrainian government is going in the right direction and successfully protecting its national interests,” Parubiy said through an interpreter during an interview at his office in Kiev on Wednesday.
Parubiy said Ukraine intends to hold the May 25 elections in all parts of the country, including its hotspots. He cited plans to allow Ukrainian citizens from Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March, to cast ballots at regional governmental centers in Ukraine. He said voting stations in separatist-held cities such as Slovyansk would also be moved to regional centers to ensure voters’ safety.
Parubiy said he had just met with local separatist leaders in the eastern regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk, armed with a presidential decree of amnesty for those willing to lay down their arms. He said the two sides could negotiate a satisfactory solution on autonomy and other issues without Russia’s interference.
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.
Analysts said Wednesday that Putin may also have been searching for a way to avoid having to send in troops if the situation escalated further. Doing so would almost certainly have resulted in Ukrainian forces fighting back — unlike Putin’s swift move in March to annex the Crimean Peninsula — and could have quickly diminished his popularity at home, which has risen to vertiginous heights during his handling of the crisis.
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.
President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said last week that any attempt to disrupt the May 25 election would trigger broad sectoral economic sanctions against Russia.
“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 suggest a road map in Moscow for Ukraine that would include a cease-fire, a de-escalation of tensions, dialogue and elections. A proposal that he outlined Tuesday ahead of the meeting with Putin offered a nonbinding poll to be held in conjunction with the elections that would sample citizens’ attitudes about how much control they want the central government in Kiev to have over its far-flung regions.
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.
Speaking in Kiev before Putin made his surprise call for postponement of the separatist referendum, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters that a failure to hold the May 25 election as scheduled would be “a terrible blow for democracy.”
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.
In interviews in the eastern city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces battled Wednesday with separatists, detaining dozens but leaving a motley crew of them to occupy the city council building, residents said they wished for a return to peace and normalcy, and most welcomed Putin’s statement.
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.
“I was born in Voronezh in Russia, and I have relatives there, but nobody should interfere in the internal affairs of another country,’’ said a shopkeeper who gave her name only as Anna. She held up her hand and said “Ukraine.” She did not want to be fully identified for fear of retaliation.
If authorities manage to gain control of Mariupol, it would deal a blow to any referendum plans. 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.
Kunkle reported from Kiev and Denyer reported from Mariupol. Alex Ryabchyn in Donetsk and Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño in Washington contributed to this report.
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.
Hague told reporters in Kiev that the Ukrainian government has shown determination to go forward with the elections. He said an international group of about 1,000 election monitors would observe the balloting, including about 100 from Britain, which is also providing “technical know-how.”
A failure to hold the elections as scheduled would be “a terrible blow for democracy,” Hague said, adding that “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.
In southeastern Ukraine, 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,” said Yulia Lafazan, a police spokeswoman. 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.
In interviews, Mariupol residents said they wished for a return to peace and normalcy, and most welcomed Putin’s statement.
“Finally, I begin to have some respect for Putin,” said a shopkeeper who gave her name only as Anna. “I was born in Voronezh in Russia, and I have relatives there, but nobody should interfere in the internal affairs of another country.” She held up her hand and said “Ukraine.” Like most of those interviewed, she did not want to be fully identified for fear of retaliation.
Nikolai, a 40-year-old businessman on a motorbike, said he was indifferent to the referendum, a sentiment he said most other residents share. He said the crisis was engineered by Yanukovych, the former president, and the oligarchs who supported him. “It’s all about the money,” he said. “I just want normal life to return.”
Two seamen who were having a drink with their families in a café by the sea also said their main concern was stability. “I want calm, without any war,” said Shapoval, 30. “For me, this is just a game of high politics.” He said he does not support the separatists.
“They never asked me what I want,” he said. “For me, the most important thing is for calm in my country, and I want my country to be independent.”
Two fisherman by the sea a short distance away agreed. “What has happened here is bad,” said one. “We just want peace.”
But outside the city hall, beside barricades of tires and barbed wire, a few dozen supporters of separatism, many of them jobless or pensioners, were milling about. “The government of Ukraine is illegal, and they have no right to hold an election,” said 50-year-old Andriy Dalekoriy, who said he was unemployed. “The first thing we must do is hold a referendum.”
“If we do not hold a referendum on the 11th, we will never hold one,” said Oleg, 58, also unemployed. “After the presidential election, no one will allow us to hold a referendum.”
As dusk fell, a man told the small crowd to go home and return the next day. “We don’t have enough people to protect you at night,” he said, waving his arms excitedly as he shouted.
Kunkle reported from Kiev. Denyer reproted from Mariupol. Alex Ryabchyn in Donetsk and Anna Nemtsova in Odessa contributed to this report.
