This just in from our News Desk, via RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak:
EU Diplomats Agree To Extend Sanctions Against Russia
By RFE/RL
BRUSSELS -- European Union ambassadors have agreed to a six-month extension of sanctions against Russia in response to its occupation and illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and Moscow's support for pro-Russia separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.
The decision by diplomats at a meeting in Luxembourg on June 21 still requires approval by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next week.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed for prolonging the current sanctions, which are due to expire at the end of July, despite growing calls for a more conciliatory approach from some EU members.
Reports suggest Merkel convinced countries like Slovakia, Hungary, and Italy to set aside their objections and keep sanctions in place until the end of January.
The sanctions, which have targeted Russia's finance and energy sectors, were first imposed in June and July 2014 and have been extended every six months since then.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa, and TASS
EU Prepares To Extend Russian Sanctions, Amid Signs Unity Is Fraying
By RFE/RL
The European Union is preparing to extend sanctions against Russia for another six months this week, but what happens after that is uncertain as cracks in the bloc's unity have begun to show.
The EU's top diplomats are expected to agree to prolong the sanctions, which expire at the end of July, at a meeting in Luxembourg on June 21, though EU leaders will not give them a formal blessing until their summit in Brussels next week.
To this point, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has firmly guided the bloc toward maintaining sanctions, keeping Russia-friendly members of her own government on the sidelines while convincing skeptical states like Slovakia, Hungary, and Italy to set aside their objections and go along.
But Merkel can no longer hide growing evidence that the mood in Berlin is shifting in favor of Russia in what may be the first sign of a serious break in the European consensus.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's push for a more conciliatory approach toward Russia was laid bare over the weekend when he told the German tabloid Bild that NATO "is inflaming the situation by warmongering and stomping boots."
Likewise, in France, lawmakers sent a clear warning that they are getting impatient with sanctions by approving a resolution earlier this month urging the government to gradually lift them.
France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on June 20 repeated his government's assurances that the sanctions will stay in place for now because Russia and Ukraine still are not complying with the Minsk agreement to settle the conflict in east Ukraine.
But he said EU leaders need to start showing "real, concrete, significant progress" in carrying out that agreement.
"Today, as I speak to you...the requirements are not met to lift sanctions...These sanctions will be renewed for six
months," Ayrault told journalists in Luxembourg after meeting with his EU counterparts. "Whatever sympathy we can have for the Russian people and Russia, we have to be clear: The Minsk agreements have to be implemented and respected."
But with the EU facing major threats posed by a massive influx of refugees, a possible British exit from the union, and attacks by the Islamic State extremist group, high-ranking officials from Germany, France, Italy, Greece and other EU members have openly wondered whether the EU can afford to let ties with Moscow keep suffering, possibly beyond repair.
Berlin, in particular, has become openly frustrated with the Ukraine government's failure to implement its side of the Minsk deal by pushing through a law that would allow elections to take place in the disputed east.
Kyiv has deflected several deadlines Germany laid down this year for carrying out the election provisions.
Steinmeier's desire to engage Russia may have its roots in his mentor: former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who cautioned in a weekend newspaper interview that "we can't allow the successes of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik (engagement policy) to be squandered."
But the German foreign minister is far from alone in demanding less militaristic posturing and more of a dialogue with Moscow.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker both attended a major Russian investor conference that was held in St. Petersburg last week -- visits that would have been unthinkable a year ago.
Juncker, while saying beforehand that he advocated extending the sanctions, stressed that he attended the event to keep the lines of communication open with Moscow.
Meanwhile, Slovakia, one of the biggest skeptics on Russia sanctions, takes over the EU Presidency in July and will be in that role when the sanctions must be revisited again in January.
"People are tired of confrontation with Russia. They don't like the tensions and they see that Ukraine is not delivering enough on the reform front," said Ulrich Speck, a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington.
With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and TASS
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Of course, you'll need to know Ukrainian to read the article he links to:
Here's another Ukraine-related item from RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak:
NATO Chief: Both Military, Political Approach Needed Toward Russia
TRONDHEIM, Norway – NATO’s top civilian leader brushed aside comments from Germany’s foreign minister that accused the alliance of “warmongering,” saying the 28-nation bloc needed both a military response and a political dialogue in dealing with Russia.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke on June 20, a day after the remarks from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier were published in the German tabloid Bild am Sonntag.
With major NATO war games going on in Poland and Lithuania, and a NATO summit scheduled for early next month in Warsaw, Steinmeier’s criticism sparked fears that Germany’s ruling coalition might be diverging in its approach to Moscow. Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, suggested NATO was “inflaming the situation by warmongering and stomping boots."
Speaking to RFE/RL in the Norwegian port of Trondheim ahead of a multinational NATO naval exercise, Stoltenberg argued that the alliance was united in its need for a dual-track approach to Russia.
“We need a strong defense to prevent conflicts but we also need political dialogue to reduce tensions,” he said. “All 28 allies are behind this dual-track approach and I welcome both Germany's strong support for the dialogue effort but also Germany's contribution to our increased military presence in the east.”
A dual-track approach is “something which is also very much in line with what has been the message from Germany in NATO for many, many years,” he said.
War Games
The alliance earlier this month conducted war games in Poland and Lithuania which were among the largest since the end of the Cold War. The exercises featured 31,000 troops from 24 NATO and partner nations, including Germany.
Germany is slated to head one of the four battalions that the alliance will deploy in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, a move aimed at easing fears among eastern alliance members after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war in eastern Ukraine.
The final decision about the bulking up NATO's eastern flank will come at the summit in Warsaw on July 8-9. Some officials and experts fear that will trigger some sort of response by Russia.
Russia has already threatened to deploy a sophisticated ballistic missile system called Iskander to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. That would directly threaten most of the three Baltic states, as well as much of Poland.
Stoltenberg refused to answer questions on whether Iskanders had already been sent to Kaliningrad but noted that Moscow had engaged in a military build-up from the Barents Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean for years now.
“I can only say that we have seen a more assertive Russia, which has tripled defense spending since 2000, which has acquired new and more modern different capabilities and which has been willing to use military force against an independent country, Ukraine, and all of this is the reason why we are strengthening our collective defense,” he said.