Putin ‘explains’ action
UKRAINE CRISIS: RUSSIAN LEADER ‘BRIEFED TRUMP’ ON NAVAL INCIDENT
Russia faces a storm of protest after capturing ships.
Buenos Aires
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he briefed his US counterpart Donald Trump on the Ukraine crisis as he came under pressure over Moscow’s robust foreign policy at the G20 summit in Argentina.
Putin said he explained Moscow’s position to Trump when the leaders met briefly at a summit dinner on Friday.
“I replied to his questions about the incident in the Black Sea,” Putin told reporters at the end of the summit.
Putin strode into the summit under a cloud, having drawn outrage from Europe over last week’s incident in which his navy detained three Ukrainian ships and 24 sailors – causing Trump to cancel their scheduled meeting.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko kept up the pressure from Kiev, saying Putin had refused to take his calls since the crisis started.
Poroshenko told France 24 in an interview that Ukraine would try to resolve the standoff diplomatically but insisted Russian forces withdraw from Crimea, and return its ships and sailors “captured illegally in the neutral waters of the Black Sea.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel took Putin to task at length over the naval spat, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron urged him to “de-escalate” the crisis.
Macron raised his concerns with the Russian leader at one of his first bilateral meetings, pressing him “to make the necessary gestures so that there is a de-escalation,” said a French official.
Merkel said she had also discussed Syria with Putin, “especially ... the Idlib region,” where a fragile ceasefire has been negotiated between rebels and Syrian army forces backed by Moscow.
Her main focus, however, was on the situation in Ukraine.
“I want to make it quite clear, though, that free shipping to the Sea of Azov must be guaranteed to the Ukrainian coasts and cities. There is a basic contractual agreement from 2003 on this. Russia must comply,” she said.
According to a French aide, Friday’s version entailed Putin drawing a map for Macron of the Kerch Strait to buttress his position that the seized Ukrainian ships had intruded into Russian waters – a claim denied by Kiev.
As for Macron, “the main message he passed on is really that of a de-escalation,” the aide said.
The November 25 incident in the disputed Kerch Strait – which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov – was the first open military confrontation between Kiev and Moscow since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Merkel said Germany had suggested a meeting of the Normandy group (Berlin, Paris, Kiev and Moscow) to discuss the crisis. –