Russia Demands New Cease-Fire in Ukraine as Foreign Ministers Seek Path to Peace

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORNJULY 2, 2014

The New York Times

MOSCOW — In a stern warning that cited civilian casualties in war-torn eastern Ukraine, Russia on Wednesday demanded that the Ukrainian government reinstate a cease-fire and halt its military operation aimed at suppressing the pro-Russian separatist insurrection that has destabilized the region for more than three months.

“Again we resolutely demand that the Ukrainian authorities — provided they are still able to evaluate sensibly the consequences of the criminal policy they conduct — to stop shelling peaceful cities and villages in their own country, to return to a real cease-fire in order to save human lives,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The statement went on to accuse President Petro O. Poroshenko’s government of the “physical annihilation of citizens of their own country” and, citing the evacuation of an orphanage in the Luhansk region, said that “the Ukrainian authorities do not even care about the fate of small children.”

Even in the context of the deeply embittered relations between the Kremlin and the government in Kiev, the Russian statement was unusually harsh and signaled blistering outrage in Moscow over the renewed military effort to end the rebellion.

Seeking to calm the situation and put peace negotiations back on track, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany met in Berlin on Wednesday afternoon but seemed to make little progress, saying that a “contact group” that met twice last week in Donetsk would try again by Saturday, “with the goal of reaching an unconditional and mutually agreed, sustainable cease-fire” that would be monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The contact group, led by a former Ukrainian president, Leonid M. Kuchma, held two sessions. At the first, some rebel leaders had agreed to adhere to Mr. Poroshenko’s cease-fire. The second session yielded nothing. A statement by the foreign ministers said the group should convene “with the goal of reaching an unconditional and mutually agreed, sustainable cease-fire.”

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, was careful to say the agreement was “a step in the right direction,” and his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, noted that it “is not the magic cure which solves all problems overnight.”

Mr. Steinmeier noted that the past two days had shown just how quickly the fighting and bloodshed could expand.

“The situation has come to a head,” he said. “We have to use every chance, however small, to stop the violence.”

In the 25 minutes that the four men spoke with reporters in a cavernous conference room, the Weltsaal, at the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin, there was no mention of where the contact group would meet. A return to Donetsk seems unlikely at the moment, since there has been active fighting and gunfire in the city.

There was also no mention of what steps, such as increased economic sanctions against Russia, might follow if this latest diplomacy should fail. Last week, European leaders had warned of such sanctions but did not follow through, a factor that apparently contributed to Mr. Poroshenko’s decision to resume military action.

Fighting continued across eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, including reports of an intense overnight battle near the Novoazovsk border crossing with Russia. Aleksiy Dmitrasahkovsky, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military operation, said that one soldier had been killed and 25 wounded since the resumption of full-scale fighting on Tuesday.

Other Ukrainian officials have said that hundreds of rebels were killed, but casualty figures are regularly disputed, and the government’s tally was impossible to verify. Mr. Dmitrasahkovsky, in a telephone interview, declined to comment on the number of rebels killed, captured or surrendered.

In Kiev, the deputy chief of the presidential administration, Valeriy Chaly, said that Mr. Poroshenko was still willing to negotiate. “The president remains committed to a peaceful resolution of the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Mr. Chaly said. But he said Mr. Poroshenko’s previous overture, which led him to declare a unilateral cease-fire on June 20, had not received an adequate response.

The cease-fire, after a three-day extension, ended on Monday night, and Mr. Poroshenko, facing intensifying political pressure to take action, ordered the military to go back on the offensive.

Despite the cease-fire, fighting had never truly stopped, and that had contributed to the public anger against Mr. Poroshenko, who campaigned on a vow of putting a swift end to the insurrection.

On Tuesday, as open warfare enveloped eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reiterated his commitment to protecting “Russian people” wherever they live.

“In Ukraine, as you may have seen, at threat were our compatriots: Russian people and people of other nationalities, their language, history, culture and legal rights, guaranteed, by the way, by European conventions,” Mr. Putin said in a speech to Russia’s diplomatic corps in Moscow.

“When I speak of Russians and Russian-speaking citizens,” Mr. Putin said, “I am referring to those people who consider themselves part of the broad Russian community. They may not necessarily be ethnic Russians, but they consider themselves Russian people.”

Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting from Moscow, and Alison Smale from Berlin.