Here's a new wrap-up from RFE/RL's news desk of the Poroshenko-Tillerson meeting in Kyiv today:
Ukraine's President Hails Tillerson Visit As A U.S. Show Of Support
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the visit to Kyiv by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a "powerful" signal of U.S. support for his country.
At a joint press conference in the Ukrainian capital on July 9 following their talks, the two men announced that the newly named U.S. special envoy for the war in eastern Ukraine, Kurt Volker, will stay on in Kyiv for several days to push for implementation of the Minsk agreements on ending the conflict.
Tillerson said the United States was disappointed with the lack of progress in implementing the 2-year-old Minsk agreements and placed the lion's share of the blame on Russia.
"We do call on Russia to honor its commitments that were made under the Minsk accords and to exercise influence over the separatists whom they do hold complete control over," Tillerson said. "And we call on [Russia] again to immediately call on their proxies to cease the violence that is ongoing in east Ukraine."
He said that when U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met on July 7 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany, they discussed "what is to be done about the Russian behavior of nonadherence to the Minsk agreements and nonimplementation of clear and straightforward steps as to the deoccupation of Ukraine."
The war in Ukraine, Tillerson said, was "planned and launched from Moscow."
He also reaffirmed that Washington would not lift sanctions against Russia until Ukraine's territorial integrity was restored. He emphasized that the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty was "the primary U.S. goal."
In a post on Twitter at nearly the same time, Trump said that "sanctions were not discussed" at his meeting on July 7 with Russian President Putin and that "nothing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved."
Tillerson also urged Kyiv to "continue economic and anticorruption reforms."
The war in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv and separatists receiving political, economic, and military support from Russia has taken more than 10,000 lives since it began in early 2014.