Section: San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
Ukraine economy at risk, may need another bailout
BRUSSELS (AP) — While Ukraine’s leaders are trying to win the war against Russian-backed separatists in the east, they appear to be losing the battle to resurrect the country’s battered economy. Ukraine might need billions in additional support if the fighting between the military and the separatists in the country’s east...
Putin’s ‘2 weeks to Kiev’ out of context: aide
Yuri Ushakov, the Russian leader’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters that Putin’s statement was “taken out of context and carried a completely different meaning.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry dismissed Heletey’s remarks as “shocking” and accused him of making the statement in a bid to shift blame...
Battle-hit Ukraine village picks up the pieces
With homes destroyed and livelihoods lost, residents in the village of Hrabske must scrape for a living and at least scrap metal is reliable — with wrecked tanks, cars and APCs everywhere. Hrabske and the nearby strategic town of Ilovaysk have suffered badly from recent clashes as separatist Russian forces relentlessly chip away at areas under...
NATO plans high-readiness force to counter Russia
Backed by air and naval assets, the unit would be a “spearhead” that could be deployed at very short notice to help NATO members defend themselves against any threat, including Russia, Rasmussen said. Since the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in March, Poland and other Eastern European members of NATO have demanded the...
Poland’s PM: Ukraine’s war must be stopped now
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, chosen by EU leaders to be the next president of the European Council, spoke Monday at the Westerplatte peninsula on the Baltic coast, where some of the first shots of World War II were fired on Sept.1, 1939. More than five years of brutal, global war followed, taking the lives of tens of millions of people....
New round of Ukraine talks to be held in Belarus
MOSCOW (AP) — With a new round of talks on easing the crisis in Ukraine about to start, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called on the participants to push for a cease-fire between Ukrainian government troops and separatist forces. …read more Source: San Francisco...
Putin wants ‘statehood’ for rebel-held southeast Ukraine region
Western governments have accused Russia of backing the separatists with arms and fighters and of sending Russian troops to lead a counteroffensive in Ukraine during the past week that threatened Mariupol, an important port city, and left thousands of government troops encircled. Putin spoke Sunday on a televised news program in Moscow as European...
Putin to Ukraine: begin immediate talks on east
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called on Ukraine to immediately start talks on a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine. Putin’s comment, made to national TV network Channel 1 and reported by Russian news agencies after they were broadcast in Russia’s Far East, said Ukraine should...
EU warns Russian-Ukraine conflict near ‘point of no return’
The European Union on Saturday warned that the apparent incursion of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil pushes the conflict closer to a point of no return, with new economic sanctions being drawn up to make Moscow reconsider its position. French President Francois Hollande and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said at the summit that the...
Front Pages from Around the Globe
Fighters with the Islamic State group captured a major military air base in Syria’s northeast on Sunday, eliminating the last government-held outpost in a province otherwise dominated by the jihadist group, activists and state media said. Israeli air strikes leveled a seven-floor office building and severely damaged a two-story shopping...
