Putin wants all of Ukraine: PM
BERLIN: Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko has accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of seeking to annex his entire country and called in interviews with German media for Chancellor Angela Merkel to come to Kiev’s aid in the crisis.
Russia seized three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews on Monday near the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters — a charge Ukraine strongly rejects.
In interviews with German media yesterday, Poroshenko rejected Russia’s charge that the vessels’ entry into the Azov Sea — a body of water shared by Ukraine and Russia on which the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk sit — was a provocation.
‘‘Putin wants the old Russian empire back,’’ he told Bild.
‘‘Crimea, Donbass, the whole country. As Russian Tsar, as he sees himself, his empire can’t function without Ukraine. He sees us as his colony.’’
The seizure drove tensions to their highest since 2015, when Moscowbacked rebels rose against the Kiev government in the eastern Donbass region, sparking a war that has killed tens of thousands.
Poroshenko called on Germany, the largest and wealthiest buyer of Moscow’s gas exports, to halt the building of an undersea gas pipeline that would allow Russia to supply Germany directly, cutting out Ukraine.
Germany regards the pipeline as a private investment. But Merkel recently acknowledged its ‘‘political dimensions’’ and said Ukraine must continue to be a conduit for Russian gas sold to western Europe.
German officials said this week their position on the pipeline was unchanged and talk of tighter sanctions against Moscow, demanded by the US and many European politicians, was ‘‘premature’’.
Poroshenko also called for the stationing of Nato vessels in the Sea of Azov.