KIEV,
Ukraine — Ukraine's president on Tuesday ordered the country's forces
to renew a military operation against pro-Russian militants in East
Ukraine after the killing of two men and a shooting at a plane.
President
Oleksandr Turchynov said one of the victims was Vladimir Rybak, a
delegate in local parliament in East Ukraine who was a member of the
president's political party.
"The terrorists who basically have
taken the entire Donetsk region hostage have crossed the line with
torturing and killing Ukrainian patriots," Turchynov said.
Turchynov
blamed the deaths on Russian forces he says have infiltrated East
Ukraine to promote unrest as a pretext for an invasion by Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The bodies were found near the city of
Slovyansk, where pro-Russian militants have been taking over government
buildings and demanding a referendum on joining Russia, as happened in
the province of Crimea last month.
Mayors hand police officers
have reported they they too have been kidnapped and forced to resign
office. A Ukrainian military reconnaissance plane took small arms fire
and was damaged while flying over the city of Slovyansk.
Ukraine
had agreed to suspend a military operation against the militants after
Western and Russian diplomats last week including U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry issued a statement that all sides should disarm.
Turchynov said only Ukraine government has abided by the truce.
"Both
Russia and its terrorist units that are defiantly present in Ukraine
haven't implemented the agreements made in Geneva," Turchynov said,
referring to the well-armed and masked soldiers at the occupied
buildings who are believed to be Russian troops.
Russia's Foreign
Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov refused to comment on the fact that those
it supports have refused to surrender their arms. He instead claimed
that Ukraine's refusal to break up peaceful protests in the capital of
Kiev means it has not complied with the Geneva agreement.
The
violence comes on a day that as Vice President Biden arrived in Kiev
to show support for the government and to tell Moscow, "It's time to
stop talking and start acting."
Standing next to Ukrainian Prime
Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Biden said Russia must urge pro-Russia
separatists in eastern Ukraine to end its takeover of government
buildings and "address their grievances politically" rather than with
force.
Biden said Russia needs to act "without delay," adding, "we will not allow this to become an open-ended process."
Pro-Russian
Ukrainians in at least eight cities have taken over government offices
in an attempt to force a referendum on whether to secede and join
Russia. Militants did the same in the Ukraine province of Crimea, which
Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed despite warnings from the White
House not to do so.
Turchynov told Biden that Russia is using the
same playbook in eastern Ukraine as it did in Crimea, infiltrating
cities with its special forces to direct militants on how to challenge
the Ukraine government.
PUTIN: Getting his way with subterfuge
In East Ukraine, militants repeated that they were not a party to the diplomatic talks in Geneva and not bound by it.
"No
one will make us vacate this building," said Vyacheslav Ponomaryov,
leader of the pro-Russian protesters in the eastern city of Slovyansk,
where three pro-Russian protesters were shot and killed over the
weekend.
Ukrainians say the Geneva agreement appears to be a farce that means nothing.
"I
don't see any chance that the protesters will vacate the buildings and
surrender," said Oksana Makarenko, who lives in Donetsk, the center of
the troubled eastern region.
"They obviously don't recognize the
government in Kiev and there is no way they will obey the agreement that
the government participated in signing. The government and
international community will have to come up with something else."
The
mood in East Ukraine was tense Tuesday as several hundred supporters of
the pro-Russian protests attended the funeral of the three civilians
who died in the attack on a checkpoint.
Russian state television
is saying the killers were Ukraine extremists who hate Russians, but
provided little evidence of it. Putin had invaded Crimea after saying he
had to protect ethnic Russians there, though it was ethnic Russians who
had taken over buildings and attacked Ukrainian military posts. Ukraine
believes Putin may use the same pretext to invade eastern Ukraine.
Meantime, pro-Russian militants kidnapped the police chief in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, just outside Slovyansk.
Biden
said that the U.S. will never recognize Russia's occupation of Crimea,
which has been called illegal by the international community. He said
the White House will offer Ukraine a $50 million aid package to weather a
tough financial situation.
Washington wants the funds to be used
for political and economic reforms in a country that has long suffered
from perceptions about the abuse of power.
Biden said that a
separate financial aid package due from the International Monetary Fund
worth up to $18 billion will soon also be finalized.
"The
opportunity to generate a united Ukraine and getting it right is within
your grasp. And we want to be your partner and friend in the project.
We're ready to assist," Biden told the Ukraine parliament.
Critics
of the Obama administration's handling of the Ukraine crisis say
Ukraine needs military backing, not financial aid, to survive Russia's
threat. John Bolton, former ambassador to the U.N. under President
George W. Bush, said President Obama should offer a "clear path" for
Ukraine to join NATO, the European-U.S. military alliance.
"It makes eminent good sense and I think that would be an enormous deterrent to Russian adventurism," Bolton told Fox News.
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