Putin to Launch Diplomatic Push Over Ukraine at Asia-Europe Summit
October 16, 2014 7:49 AM
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine will dominate the agenda at the Asia-Europe Meeting, which begins Thursday in Milan, Italy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a series of talks with his European counterparts during the two-day summit, beginning with German Chancellor Angela Merkel after his arrival on Thursday from Serbia. He will then participate in a breakfast meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and other European leaders.
The talks will likely focus on the shaky cease-fire in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian rebels, as well as the resumption of Russian natural gas deliveries to Ukraine. Moscow halted gas deliveries to its neighbor in June, over what it says are more than $5 billion in unpaid Ukraine energy bills.
The dispute could also affect Russian natural gas shipments to the European Union during the upcoming winter season.
Relations between Russia and Western nations have deteriorated over Kremlin support for a pro-Russian separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine and Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. The annexation triggered the first of several rounds of U.S.-led economic sanctions targeting key Russian individuals and key components of the Russian economy.
In an extended interview Wednesday that appeared in the Serbian daily Politika ahead of his trip to Belgrade, Putin said Russia will not be "blackmailed" by Western sanctions. He equated ongoing Western sanctions against Moscow with "recklessness," and he referred to protests in Kyiv that toppled Ukraine's pro-Russian president early this year as "an anti-constitutional coup d'etat."
East-West tensions were further strained in July by the shootdown in Ukrainian airspace of a Malaysian airliner with 298 people on board. Moscow - accused by Washington of complicity in that attack - has repeatedly denied supplying rebels with the Russian missile battery linked to the shootdown.
In the run-up to the Milan summit, Putin early this week ordered more than 17,000 troops to withdraw from an area near the Ukrainian border.
Russia has consistently denied the presence of its troops inside Ukraine, while separatist rebel leaders say they have been helped by Russian soldiers.voa
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