Firefighters extinguish a fire at the electricity power station in the village of Schatsya, near the eastern Ukrainian town of Luhansk. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

A fresh round of peace talks with representatives for the Ukrainian government and leaders of the country’s pro-Russian separatists kicked off yesterday amid reports of fresh bloodshed in eastern Ukraine.

Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, who represents the government in Kiev, and Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, said that they hope the talks in Minsk, Belarus’ capital, will move the peace process forward, Russian news agencies reported.

Kuchma and Luhansk separatist leader Alexei Karyakin said the main topic would be ensuring that the fragile ceasefire is obeyed.

Both stressed that monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), who mediated yesterday’s talks, should play a crucial role, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The unlimited ceasefire was introduced after similar talks in Minsk on September 5.

Yesterday’s talks started about four hours later than planned.

The separatists insisted that they want sovereignty from Kiev for the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.

“We expect to sign a document that reflects our position on a special status,” Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko was quoted as saying by Interfax.

The Ukrainian parliament this week passed a bill that grants the separatists wide-ranging autonomy, including the right to maintain their own people’s militias.

The law refers to a temporary special political status, which Ukrainian officials insisted does not mean sovereignty.

Some lawmakers in Kiev have criticised this status as going too far and warned they will challenge the bill, which has not yet been signed by President Petro Poroshenko.

The president met with his US counterpart, Barack Obama, on Thursday in Washington.

The White House announced aid of an additional $53mn to Poroshenko’s government, most of which was earmarked for non-lethal military gear and not weapons.

Earlier yesterday, fresh clashes were reported in eastern Ukraine, killing seven people and injuring eight.

Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said two soldiers had been killed and three injured in the last 24 hours, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.

A search was ongoing for six servicemen who went missing in the same period, Lysenko said.

In the cities of Donetsk and Makiivka, three civilians were killed and three were wounded by artillery fire, local authorities said.

Lysenko said the separatists violated the ceasefire by firing on government positions in at least 17 locations during the 24-hour time frame.

The rebels said they only returned fire when attacked by government forces.

 

Russia critical of MH17 inquiry, wants bigger United Nations role

Russia has criticised an international investigation into the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine, saying that it can be only transparent with more UN involvement, even though the world body found the inquiry met international standards.

The UN Security Council met, at the request of Russia, to discuss a preliminary Dutch Safety Board report that said flight MH17 crashed due to a “large number of high-energy objects” penetrating the fuselage.

The conclusion supported a theory that it had been shot down by a ground-based missile.

“The preliminary report of the DSB (Dutch Safety Board) is not very informative and doesn’t contain convincing information about the circumstances of the crash,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the 15-member council.

He said Moscow believed a transparent and objective investigation could be carried out only “with the help and participation in the investigation of the UN”, suggesting that a UN envoy and assistance mission should be considered.

The jetliner crashed in Ukraine in pro-Russian rebel-held territory on July 17, killing 298 people, two-thirds of them from the Netherlands.

Ukraine and Western countries accuse the rebels of shooting it with a Russian missile.

Russia has rejected accusations it supplied the rebels with SA-11 Buk anti-aircraft missile systems.

“Russia made clear its real intention is not to learn about the investigation, but to discredit it,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the council.

“Russia is fighting in Ukraine. Russia has provided artillery and surface-to-air missiles to separatists in Ukraine. It has trained separatists on those surface-to-air missiles. It has moved troops into Ukraine. Russia has no standing to offer advice on this investigation,” she said.

UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman briefed the council on the preliminary results of the Dutch-led inquiry.

“The United Nations is confident that the Dutch-led international investigation has been conducted in accordance with Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation,” he said, referring to a international standards for such inquiries.

 

 

 

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