Masked pro-Russia militants stand guard near a barricade outside a regional government building they seized in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, April 23, 2014.
Ukraine has formally called off an Easter truce with pro-Russian separatists in the country＇s east and announced "anti-terrorist operations" are on again.
First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema told reporters during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that "appropriate steps" will be taken and that results will be seen shortly.
Yarema said Ukraine has received assurances from the United States that it would not be left alone to face Russian aggression. He expressed hope that the U.S. support will be more substantive.
Ukraine＇s interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, has already ordered security forces to resume "anti-terrorist" operations in eastern Ukraine. His order came just hours after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden ended a two-day trip to Kiyv Tuesday.
Moscow threatens retaliation
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state television that Russia would retaliate if its legitimate interests or Russians are attacked. He said Moscow＇s response would be the same as it was in South Ossetia in 2008, which led to a brief war with Georgia.
Separately, Russia accused Kyiv and the U.S. of distorting an agreement reached in Geneva last week to defuse the crisis in Ukraine and of ignoring what it said were provocative actions by Ukrainian nationalists.
Russia still believes the West is serious about seeking peace in Ukraine but “the facts speak of the opposite,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday.
It repeated Moscow＇s calls for the immediate withdrawal of Ukrainian military units from southeastern Ukraine and the start of an inclusive dialogue in the former Soviet republic.
Ukraine says, and many in the West agree, that the separatist unrest is being staged in large part by undercover Russian special forces with the aim of destabilizing Ukraine and creating a pretext for a possible military intervention.
Ukrainian military moves last week to drive separatists from government buildings they have seized in about a dozen cities and towns failed.
Pro-Russian gunmen are demanding the right to hold referendums on seceeding from Ukraine and joining Russia. A vote last month in Crimea, which Kyiv and many in West condemned as illegitimate, led to the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
US boosts regional troop presence
U.S. Army paratroopers are set to begin joint exercises with their counterparts in Poland Wednesday as part of what the Pentagon says is a "tangible expression" of the U.S. commitment to Europe.
Washington is sending a total of about 600 paratroopers to Poland and three Baltic states in response to ongoing tensions in Ukraine.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby does not deny the move is the result of what he called "Russia＇s aggression in Ukraine."
"If there is a message to Moscow, it is the same exact message that we take our obligations very seriously on the continent of Europe," said Kirby
The bilateral exercises will last about a month. Kirby said new troops will then rotate in for fresh exercises throughout the rest of the year or longer.
Kirby said placing troops on the ground is more than a symbolic gesture. He called for Russia to remove its forces from the border with Ukraine and respect Ukrainian sovereignty.
Politician killed
The resumption of “anti-terrorist” operations by Kyiv was triggered in part by the apparent killing by a pro-Russian mob of a politician of the same party affiliation as Ukraine’s interim president.
Video footage from last Thursday on local news site gorlovka.ua shows angry scenes outside the town hall of Horlivka, between the separatist flashpoint cities of Donetsk and Slovyansk, as town councilman Volodymyr Rybak is manhandled by several men, among them a masked man in camouflage, while other people hurl abuse.
Rybak had tried to remove a flag of the separatist Donetsk Republic, the website said.
Ukraine＇s Interior Ministry said that after the confrontation Rybak was seen being bundled into a car by masked men in camouflage. His body was found on Saturday near Slovyansk.
He and another, unidentified, man appeared to have been tortured and dumped alive in a river to drown, police concluded.
Gas supplies
Russian gas giant Gazprom has said it will turn off supplies to Ukraine next month unless Kyiv pays its outstanding debts. The move would have a ripple effect on deliveries to Europe, because much of the gas shipped westwards has to pass through Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said Russia had proposed a ministerial meeting on Thursday with Ukrainian and European officials in Slovakia to talk about gas but the European Commission said Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger was not expected to attend any talks.
Meanwhile, Austria says more sanctions on Russia would only inflame tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.
”I would fundamentally support what the German foreign
minister [Frank-Walter] Steinmeier made clear again today: that conflict between Russia and Ukraine should not be inflamed by additional sanctions, but on the contrary, that de-escalation is what is required,” chancellor Werner Faymann told reporters after the Austrian government＇s weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Both the EU and the U.S. are considering a third round of sanctions against Russia if it escalates tensions in Ukraine.
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