“We shouldn’t kid people we would,” Ben Wallace told the Spectator magazine. “The Ukrainians are aware of that.”

Russia has moved thousands of troops near Ukraine’s eastern borders, leading Western powers to urge President Vladimir Putin to de-escalate tensions.

Moscow has denied plans to attack and has asked for urgent talks with the US.

On Friday, Russia demanded strict limits on the activities of the US-led Nato military alliance in countries in Eastern Europe.

The alliance was originally set up to defend Europe against possible threats from the former Soviet Union.

In an interview with the Spectator, Mr Wallace said Ukraine was “not a member of Nato, so it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to send troops into Ukraine to challenge Russia”.

“That is why we are doing the best diplomatically to say to Putin don’t do this,” he said, adding that “severe economic sanctions” were the most likely form of deterrent.

Mr Wallace has previously said that the UK stands “shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine” and remains determined to support them.

Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?
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Can a solution be found for war in Ukraine’s east?
Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Mr Putin of “significant consequences” of any “destabilising action” in the region.

Ukraine shares borders with both the EU and Russia, but as a former Soviet republic it has deep social and cultural ties with Russia.

The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of provocation with its ambition to join Nato.

In proposals announced on Friday, Russia set out a series of radical demands – including requiring countries that joined Nato after the fall of the Soviet Union not to deploy troops or weapons in areas where they could be seen as a threat to Russia.

Heavy bombers and warships would not be allowed in areas outside their national airspace or waters from which they could launch an attack as part of the proposals.

That would mean Nato not playing any role at all in any of the three Baltic republics or Poland, as well as having to abandon any plans for Ukraine and Georgia to eventually join the Western alliance.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Saturday that the proposals were an attempt to avoid a possible military conflict.

He said Moscow was ready to hold talks with the US in an effort “to turn a military or a military-technical scenario of confrontation into a political process which will really strengthen military security”, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

The US has said it is open to discussions, but that it would be putting its own concerns on the table too.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also said on Friday that there would be “no talks on European security without our European allies and partners”.

Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions.

It invaded Georgia during a brief war in 2008 and seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, before backing separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Conflict in the east began in April 2014 and has claimed more than 14,000 lives, with casualties still being reported.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59712020

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Ukraine and Russia have agreed to implement a “full and comprehensive” ceasefire in eastern Ukraine by the end of 2019, after top-level talks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky met face to face at a Paris summit on Monday.

Mr. Zelensky was downbeat, saying little had been achieved at the meeting and he had wanted to see more resolved.

Five-and-a-half years of fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels have cost 13,000 lives.

The negotiations were brokered by the leaders of France and Germany.

They follow a big prisoner swap and the withdrawal of Ukraine’s military from three key areas on the front line.

What was agreed?

In a written statement, the countries agreed to the release and exchange of all “conflict-related detainees” by the end of the year.

The two sides also pledged to disengage military forces in three additional regions of Ukraine by the end of March 2020, without specifying which regions would be affected.

Additional talks will be held in four months to take stock of the ceasefire’s progress.

Vladimir Putin arrives for talks in Paris aimed at tackling the conflict in eastern Ukraine – Getty Images

At a press conference after the talks in France’s Elysée Palace, President Putin hailed them as an “important step” towards a de-escalation of the conflict.

President Zelensky said the issue of Russian gas exports via pipelines through Ukraine had been “unblocked” after a dispute about transit tariffs, and an agreement would now be worked out.

But Russia and Ukraine continue to disagree on issues such as the withdrawal of Russian-backed troops, and elections in areas of Ukraine held by the separatist rebels.

Mr. Putin also called for a change in Ukraine’s constitution to give special status to the Donbas region, which is held by the rebels. He also pushed for an amnesty for people who had taken part in the seizure of Ukrainian territory.

• Will a deal with Russia bring peace to Ukraine?
• What’s the background to the crisis?

Mr. Zelensky told reporters that Ukraine would not make any territorial concessions in exchange for peace.

“We saw differences today,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“We didn’t find the miracle solution, but we have advanced on it,” he added.

So how did we get here?

Mr. Zelensky, a former comic actor, was elected president of Ukraine in a landslide victory in April following a campaign built around bringing peace to eastern Ukraine.

Since then, his strategy has focused on trying to restart talks with Moscow. For that to happen Mr. Zelensky has had to agree to some Russian conditions, including pulling back Ukrainian troops in the eastern towns of Stanytsia Luhansk, Petrivske, and Zolote.

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In June, Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists withdrew a kilometre from Stanytsia Luhanska. By late October, the Ukrainians and separatists had disengaged from Zolote and early in November they pulled back from Petrivske.

Nato and Western intelligence experts have repeatedly accused Russia of sending heavy weapons and combat troops into eastern Ukraine to help the rebels.

Russia denies that but admits that Russian “volunteers” are helping the rebels.

In September, Mr. Zelensky won praise for a long-awaited prisoner swap with Russia – he described it as a “victory” that had emerged from personal phone contact with the Russian president.

Media captionFreed Ukrainians meet families after months of separation

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To pave the way for the summit, President Zelensky accepted a 2016 deal granting special status to the separatist-held parts of Ukraine’s Donbas region.

The “Steinmeier formula” aims to break the impasse over peace agreements reached at the height of the fighting. It details free and fair elections in the east under Ukrainian law, verification by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and then self-governing status in return.

What triggered the deadly conflict?

Pro-Russian separatists seized control of large swathes of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in April 2014, just after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

It was an insurgency against the new pro-Western authorities in the capital Kyiv, who had ousted the pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in street protests dubbed the “Maidan Revolution”.

The separatists later declared independence from Ukraine – but no country has recognized their “republics”.

• March, 2014: Russian forces annex Crimea after President Yanukovych is ousted in Kyiv, prompting the biggest East-West showdown since the Cold War. The US and the EU impose harsh sanctions on Russia
• April: Pro-Russian armed groups seize parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the Russian border of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine launches a military operation in response
• September: Nato confirms Russian troops and heavy military equipment have been entering eastern Ukraine
• November, 2018: Three Ukrainian ships are intercepted by Russia in the Kerch Strait near Crimea. Ukraine calls it an act of Russian aggression, saying the Black Sea is free for shipping
• April-July, 2019: Volodymyr Zelensky wins presidential election run-off in a landslide victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko
• September: Russia and Ukraine swap prisoners captured in the wake of Moscow’s seizure of Crimea and intervention in the Donbas
• November: Russia returns three navy boats to Ukraine almost a year after they were seized off the Crimean Peninsula

When Russia returned Ukraine’s naval vessels President Zelensky said any missing items would have to be handed back

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I’d just come back from a trip to Ukraine’s industrial port of Mariupol and had spent the night on board a coastguard vessel.

In spite of Commander Ihor Voronchenko’s bravado, it was clear, even then, that Russia held all the cards.

Outnumbered and outgunned on the water, there was very little Ukraine’s threadbare navy could do if Russia wanted to take control of the Sea of Azov.

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Legally Ukraine’s position was also weak.

Under the terms of a 2003 agreement, the Azov sea and its access point through the Kerch Strait are supposed to be shared by Ukraine and Russia.

The 2003 deal didn’t put any dotted lines on the chart. Instead, the vessels of both countries were given carte blanche to pretty much roam as they wished.

It worked, up to a point. Then in 2014 Russia seized Crimea and the dynamic changed.

The Kerch Strait was no longer flanked by the Russian authorities to the east, and the Ukrainians in the west.

The straits were now fully under Moscow’s control, and the Russians had big plans.

Moscow wanted to link Crimea to Russia, so a 12-mile (19km) bridge was quickly constructed. It was formally opened in May 2018 when Russian President Vladimir Putin triumphantly drove a truck across it.

The bridge was bad news for eastern Ukraine.

Citing the need to increase security, Russia dramatically increased the number of armed vessels both near the Kerch Strait and in the Sea of Azov.

Cargo ships that wanted to reach Ukraine’s Azov ports now found themselves subject to more inspections and lengthy delays that sometimes stretched to a week.

With an extra day at sea costing a shipping company up to $15,000 (£11,700), picking up steel or grain from Mariupol was now an unpredictable proposition, and some understandably opted to stay away.

Ukraine began complaining that it was facing an economic blockade, and that Russia was in breach of the 2003 “sharing” agreement.

Much to Kiev’s frustration, there was little international response, and the life was slowly throttled out of Ukraine’s Azov ports.

The cranes that peer down on to Mariupol’s docks stood idle and the port workers were put on a four-day week. When we visited in October, there were just three cargo ships in dock.

Left to its own devices, Ukraine has tried to bolster its limited naval capabilities.

 Ukraine’s president said martial law would last 30 days and would not affect scheduled elections. – AFP/UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/MYKHAIL OImage

The clash prompted Ukrainian nationalists to demand action against Russia  – EPA

Russia’s Vladimir Putin visited Crimea two days before the clash a few miles off the peninsula — Reuters

The refitting of two second-hand ships has been agreed with the US, and a few vessels have been redeployed from the Black Sea into the Azov.

But they’re still hopelessly outnumbered.

That brings us to Sunday, when Ukraine attempted to send three navy vessels – a tugboat and two small armoured ships through the Kerch Strait.

Those dramatic events have been well documented and – as is now the case with everything to do with Russia – endlessly debated.

Put in the simplest incontestable terms, Russian coastguard vessels rammed and then shot at the Ukrainian boats before capturing them and the 24 sailors on board.

It marked the most serious development in Ukraine’s relationship with Russia since the annexation of Crimea back in 2014.

• Anger as Crimea excluded from Ukraine map
• The place that’s rather difficult to get into

On Monday evening, 24 hours after he lost three of his boats and nearly two dozen men, Cdr Voronchenko dropped by the BBC office in Kiev for another chat.

I asked him whether he still believed, as he’d told me six weeks ago, that the Sea of Azov would not be lost to Russia like Crimea. There was no certainty this time.

“I’ll tell you this – we will fight for our land till our last breath,” he said.

“We’ll do all we can so our land remains ours and our sea remains ours. We’ll take all necessary measures to defend and protect our country.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46345853

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