Germany says nobody wants new sanctions but Russia must observe ceasefire
BERLIN, Jan 29 (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday that Europe had no interest in imposing tougher new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, but the only way forward was to abide by the terms of last year's ceasefire agreed in Minsk.
"Of course nobody in Europe and certainly not in Germany has any interest in further, tougher sanctions and Europe and the whole world clearly needs Russia as a partner to solve global conflicts and challenges," Gabriel told the German parliament.
"But the way to a new breakthrough in European-Russian relations, the way for example to free trade from Lisbon to Vladivostok, goes via Minsk and the steps agreed there to end the armed intervention in Ukraine," he said.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) today published its World Report 2015, a review of human rights practices in more than 90 countries from the end of 2013 to Novembe 2014.
Here's an excerpt from RFE/RL's story on the report that focuses on Russia and Ukraine:
On Russia, HRW says the Kremlin in 2012 began what has become “the most intense crackdown on dissent since the Soviet era,” targeting human rights groups, dissidents, independent journalists, and peaceful protesters.
HRW chief Kenneth Roth says the “relatively narrow” Western reaction to such violations “may well have aggravated” the Ukrainian crisis as the resulting closed information system enabled the Kremlin to suppress most public criticism of its actions in Ukraine.
"The fact that nobody actually addressed these [abuses] in any coherent and direct way gave Moscow a feeling that, 'We can keep going, we can push and push,’” says HRW's European media director Andrew Stroehlein. “Again we see how security and human rights are not opposites.”
Meanwhile, Roth says, the desire to present Ukraine as the innocent victim of Russian aggression has made the West reluctant to challenge Ukrainian abuses, including “the use of ‘voluntary battalions’ that routinely abuse detainees, or the indiscriminate firing of weapons into populated areas.”
Pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine themselves, he adds, have “seriously abused detainees and have endangered the civilian population by launching rockets from their midst.”
Read more here.
Here is today's situation map of eastern Ukraine by the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
More on those Gorbachev comments from RFE/RL's News Desk:
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says he fears the confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine could escalate into armed conflict.
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Gorbachev as saying that the United States has "dragged us into a new Cold War."
"Unfortunately, I cannot say confidently that the Cold War will not lead to a hot one," Gorbachev was quoted as saying.
Gorbachev criticized the United States over the sanctions they have imposed on Russia, saying, "Have they lost their minds entirely?"
The sanctions were imposed in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March and its support for separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces in a conflict that has killed more than 5,100 people since April.
More from RFE/RL's News Desk on the issue of mobile military crematoriums allegedly being used by Russia in eastern Ukraine:
The head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says Russia has deployed seven "mobile military crematoriums" in the eastern Donetsk region to burn the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat there.
SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko told Ukraine's Channel 5 TV on January 28 that the crematoriums are mounted on Kamaz trucks and said each is burning eight to 10 bodies per day.
He said Ukraine had "documented this information" but did not explain how.
Moscow denies sending troops to Ukraine to fight alongside separatists against government forces in a conflict that has killed more than 5,100 people since April, saying the only Russians fighting there are “volunteers.”
But relatives of some Russian soldiers say servicemen have been pressured to fight in Ukraine, and there are reports of bodies of Russian soldiers being repatriated for burial.
Ukrainian President President Poroshenko said on January 21 that there were 9,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine.