News Manager
Milforums News Bot
The United States should press Ukraine's new leader to stop violence and talk to separatists, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, Russian media reported. Speaking to journalists after talks with Kerry in Paris, Lavrov said Ukraine's pro-Western government should take the first step to stop the fighting and voiced confidence its opponents in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions would follow suit. "I have no doubt that our American partners can and are influencing Poroshenko." Poroshenko was elected on May 25 to replace a pro-Russian president who was ousted in February, in a chain of events that has set off deadly violence in eastern Ukraine and opened the widest rift between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The United States, EU and others have imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March.More...