Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Ukraine Still Faces Threat of Russian Military Offensive – Poroshenko

Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine


Reuters, 08/09 15:35 CET

By Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine still faces the threat of a full-scale Russian military attack despite several days of relative calm on the front-lines of the east where government forces confront Russian-backed separatists, President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday.

Poroshenko comments at a government meeting come amid signs of discord in the governing coalition over his peace efforts and disenchantment over falling living standards and economic hardship.

Russia’s aim is to “strangle our state economically and destabilise it,” he said, referring to a Russian ban on Ukrainian food imports and a failure to agree on a new price structure for Russian gas imports which has left Ukraine’s storage levels dangerously low as winter approaches.

Moscow is also now insisting Kiev repays a $3 billion bond in full in December, disassociating itself from an agreement by other of Ukraine’s creditors to ease repayment conditions on its huge foreign commercial debt.

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Source: Euronews

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