No UK troops for Ukraine, minister says
US ANGRY AT RUSSIA’S ‘LIES’ AS MOSCOW WARNS IT COULD CUT OFF GAS SUPPLIES TO KIEV BY THE WEEKEND
Britain will not deploy combat troops to Ukraine, which is fighting pro-Russian separatists along its eastern flank, Defence Minister Michael Fallon told parliament yesterday.
Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday that Britain would deploy military personnel to Ukraine in the next month to help train the Ukrainian army, warning that Moscow would move to destabilise other countries if left unchallenged.
“We are not deploying combat troops to Ukraine and will not do so,” Fallon said when asked whether the deployment of military personnel would provoke so-called mission creep.
A UN-backed ceasefire showed signs of taking hold in Ukraine yesterday, but tensions remained high after the US accused Russia of “lies” and Britain ordered a small troop deployment to train Kiev’s forces.
Russia’s gas warning
Russia in turn has warned it could cut off gas supplies to Ukraine by the weekend — and, by extension, to parts of the European Union. For the first time since the European-brokered truce was imposed February 15, no deaths were reported in Ukraine’s war zone by either side for the past 24 hours.
“Over the past day, one soldier was wounded but there were no dead,” Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists in Kiev.
There was still no confirmation, though, from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of a pullback of heavy weapons from the front line — the other key plank of the truce.
Rebels insisted they were withdrawing artillery, rocket launchers and tanks from some areas, and journalists saw a column of howitzer guns being driven along a road near the separatist stronghold of Donetsk.
“We are following orders to pull back heavy weapons, but the Ukrainians aren’t,” a rebel commander going by the nickname “Khoroshii” said.
But the head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, said in a statement the warring sides had not provided the information needed to determine what, if any, arms withdrawals have occurred.
Kiev says it will not carry out an arms pullback until a full and “comprehensive” ceasefire is observed and has accused Russia of continuing to send military hardware in to bolster the rebels.
Breaches of truce
The West has thrown its hopes of finding a negotiated solution to Ukraine’s 10-month conflict fully behind the truce, which last week won unanimous backing from the UN Security Council.
But continued breaches by rebel forces — especially their assault on Debaltseve, a strategic transport hub, and a build-up and attacks on Ukrainian army positions near the port city of Mariupol — have exasperated the EU and US.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday launched his most scathing accusation to date over Russia’s alleged involvement in the conflict. “They have been persisting in their misrepresentations — lies — whatever you want to call them — about their activities there to my face, to the face of others, on many different occasions,” he told US lawmakers.
He said Russia was also engaging in “a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I’ve seen since the very height of the Cold War”.