BY ROBIN EMMOTT
NATO's top commander warned on Wednesday there
was little chance that Russia would meet a year-end deadline for a peace deal
in eastern Ukraine, saying the calmer situation there did not mean the end of
the conflict was near.
Spelling out what many Western officials
believe, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove said Russia continued
to support separatists in the area and that the ebb and flow in violence was
Russia's way of demonstrating its power.
"Russia still supports its proxies in
eastern Ukraine," Breedlove told a news conference. "It is not very
likely that we can get everything we need in Minsk by the end of the
year," he said, referring to the 12-point peace deal signed in the Belarus
capital in February.
Russia denies it has provided weapons to the
rebels or that it has troops engaged in the conflict that has killed more than
8,000 people since it April 2014, following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's
Crimea peninsula.
Breedlove, who also heads the U.S. European
Command, said Western intelligence indicated otherwise.
"Russia is completely in control of what is
happening on the line of contact and they will use that in the future," he
said.
"We have seen multiple convoys into the
Donbass, they have all been labeled as humanitarian support. We all know that
is not correct," he added. The Donbass is the commonly used name for
industrial regions of eastern Ukraine now under rebel control.
After a period of relative calm, both rebels and
the Ukrainians have complained of more violations of the ceasefire negotiated
as part of the Minsk deal. Both say heavy artillery that was meant to have been
withdrawn is still being used.
The leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and
Russia negotiated the Minsk peace deal in February and the West has tied its
implementation to any loosening of economic sanctions on Russia. The deal
expires on Dec. 31 but France's President Francois Hollande has signaled it
could be prolonged, while sanctions on Russia are also likely to be continued.
Speaking on Wednesday at NATO headquarters, U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to act:
"If Moscow wants relief from sanctions ... it is there for the
getting."
"Implement Minsk and this can be
achieved," he told a separate news conference following a meeting of NATO
foreign ministers who discussed the Ukraine crisis.
Breedlove and Kerry said end-of-year targets set
under the Minsk agreement included restoration of Ukrainian control on its
eastern border, removal of all non-Ukrainian state forces from the region and
release of hostages.
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