MOSCOW — The presidents of Russia
ad Ukraine traded oblique criticisms of each other on Monday for the lack of progress in ending the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, even as mediators started a new effort to achieve a deal.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused Kiev of seeking to avoid talks that could lead to some degree of autonomy for southeastern Ukraine, and again defended the separatist militias widely seen as proxies fighting for Moscow
“The root of the tragedy currently unfolding, as I see it, is that the current government in Kiev does not want to engage in a substantive political dialogue with the country’s eastern regions,” Mr. Putin said in brief remarks while on a visit to Siberia, according to the presidential website. “I mean here a real political dialogue on the matters of substance.”
For the second time in three days, Mr. Putin endorsed the actions of the militias fighting against the Ukrainian military. He said they were trying to push the military away from population centers in the east to prevent the shelling of residential districts. In addition, he accused European nations, among others, of ignoring the shelling of civilian areas by Ukrainian government forces.
Yet, Mr. Putin also called the resumption of settlement talks in Minsk, Belarus, on Monday, the first since late July, a “very important process.” The return to negotiations was considered an important step, but the various parties only exchanged proposals, with the talks set to resume on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.
A peace plan outlined by President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine in discussions with Mr. Putin last week would start with a cease-fire and include the release of all detainees, the withdrawal of all Russian arms and soldiers and joint patrols along the border. The patrols would include peacekeepers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is participating in the Minsk talks.
Despite professing to want to work with Mr. Poroshenko, Mr. Putin in recent days has adopted a much harder public stance against Ukraine. On Sunday, he used an ambiguous reference to “statehood” for the southeast, intimating that the region might become independent, although his spokesman said the president meant autonomy within a unified Ukraine.
In Kiev on Monday, Mr. Poroshenko implicitly accused Russia of undertaking a direct assault on his country that caused a critical shift in the fighting in the southeast.
“Direct, unconcealed aggression has been launched against Ukraine from a neighboring country,” he said in a speech at the military academy in Kiev, according to a summary posted on the presidential website. “It radically changes the situation in the conflict area.”
The country’s defense minister, Valeriy Heletey, was even more emphatic. “A great war has arrived at our doorstep,” he said in a Facebook post, “the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War II.” He warned that “tens of thousands” could die.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said in a briefing Monday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the airport near Luhansk in the face of a Russian tank battalion, and that seven Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the last 24 hours in the east.
The colonel said that the Russian military had dispatched “four battalion-tactical groups” into Ukraine, each consisting of 400 men. Ukrainian forces had destroyed seven Russian tanks, the spokesman said.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of direct involvement in the conflict, which Russia flatly denies. Colonel Lysenko’s report could not be independently confirmed.
The continued fighting prompted calls for tougher military and economic measures from the West.
Addressing Germany’s Parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel used stark terms to describe the fighting. “It is becoming ever clearer that, from the very start, this was not a conflict within Ukraine, but a conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” she said.
Ukraine Crisis in Maps
Earlier, at a news conference, she addressed the question of new sanctions, noting of course that they will have an impact on German companies that export to the Russian market.
“I have to say there is also an impact when you are allowed to move borders in Europe and attack other countries with your troops,” she said. “Accepting Russia’s behavior is not an option. And therefore it was necessary to prepare further sanctions.”
In Kiev, Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, called for the United States to provide defensive weapons to Kiev to help stave off the Russian advance, saying that night-vision goggles supplied to help spot the enemy were useless if the Ukrainians had nothing to respond with.
Mr. Menendez rejected the idea that providing weapons would provoke a military response from Russia, saying it had responded with its army repeatedly without any provocation from the West.
“From my perspective this is a Russian fight against Europe being fought out on Ukrainian territory,” Mr. Menendez told a news conference in Kiev, where he also accused Russia of blocking attempts to find a peaceful solution.
The last attempt to establish a cease-fire failed, but the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that such an agreement was the priority for the meeting in Minsk on Monday. “I expect that the talks scheduled for today will be, first of all, focused on the arrangement of an immediate, unconditional cease-fire,” he said in an address to students on Monday.
Andrei Purgin, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, was quoted by Russian news agencies as calling the talks the beginning of a process with no immediate breakthrough on the horizon.
“We have come with proposals to find common ground and end the war and people dying,” he said. The separatists are seeking special autonomy for their region with the right to conduct their own foreign trade policy to allow them to integrate with the Russian-led Customs Union, he said. That echoed Russia’s demand for autonomy for the southeast that would give it veto power over decisions from Kiev.
Colonel Lysenko said on Sunday that an initial exchange of captives over the weekend, involving nine Russian commandos and 63 Ukrainian soldiers, was a step toward easing tensions before the talks.
He also confirmed on Monday that the first sea battle with the separatists had erupted on Sunday, with separatists firing artillery at a Ukrainian ship in the Azov Sea. One cutter was sunk, he said, but another survived and was able to rescue the crew.
Russia has repeatedly denied deploying arms or troops into Ukraine, claiming that any soldiers who ended up there strayed over the border accidentally. It also denies arming the separatists and says it is merely defending the interests of the area’s substantial Russian-speaking population. A senior local commander has said that up to 4,000 Russian “volunteers” had fought alongside the separatists.
Lev Shlosberg, a lawmaker in Pskov, northwest Russia, was beaten by unknown assailants on Friday after bringing attention to the deaths of Russian paratroopers fighting in Ukraine, according to local news reports.
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