MOSCOW (AP) – Russia’s foreign minister warned Thursday that Ukraine’s NATO ambitions are threatening to derail peace talks in eastern Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday they are working on a deal to halt months of fighting in eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin spelled out a seven-point plan for ending hostilities and expressed hope for a breakthrough at talks in Minsk, Belarus, on Friday.
But Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks Thursday that statements by senior government officials in Kiev that Ukraine will be seeking to join NATO are “a blatant attempt to derail all the efforts” to seek a peaceful solution in Ukraine.
NATO leaders are meeting this week at a summit in Wales. As they began gathering Thursday morning, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accused the Russians of continued meddling in Ukraine despite Putin’s proclamation of a peace plan.
“What counts is what is actually happening on the ground,” Rasmussen said. “And we are still witnessing, unfortunately, Russian involvement in destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine. So we continue to call on Russia to pull back its troops from Ukrainian borders, stop the flow of weapons and fighters into Ukraine, stop the support for armed militants in Ukraine and engage in a constructive political process. That would be a genuine effort to facilitate a peaceful solution to the crisis in Ukraine.”