President Vladimir V Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Thursday that Ukraine must remove its military from the southeastern region of the country in order to resolve the showdown there with pro-Russian militants who have seized several official buildings, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
?Putin emphasized that it was imperative today to withdraw all military units from the southeastern regions, stop the violence and immediately launch a broad national dialogue as part of the constitutional reform process involving all regions and political forces,? Interfax said.
Russia has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for escalating the situation and has accused the government in Kiev of deploying 11,000 soldiers in the region. Acting Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had said the security services had lost control of the region to armed separatists who have seized government buildings in about a dozen towns.
Ukraine has said it sent soldiers to the east in response to maneouvers by some 40,000 Russian troops deployed just over the border on what the Kremlin has termed training exercises. Kiev has said any move by Russian troops over the border would be treated as an invasion.
Christiane Wirtz, a spokeswoman for the German chancellor, said Merkel had urged Putin to intervene in the case of seven military monitors, including four German soldiers, affiliated with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who are being held hostage by a separatist mayor in the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk.
?The chancellor reminded President Putin of Russia?s responsibility as a member of the OSCE and called on the president to use his influence,? Wirtz said. The conversation was initiated by Merkel, Kremlin said. Both leaders reportedly agreed the OSCE should serve as mediator in the impasse over Ukraine.
In a separate report from Interfax, the pro-Russian movement in Slovyansk said it had freed two of three captured members of the Ukrainian security services in exchange for the release of an unspecified number of its own activists. The report could not be immediately confirmed.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued another statement Thursday condemning the national vote on May 25, while military operations continue in the east.
The interim authorities in Kiev were also reported on Thursday to have ordered the expulsion of a naval attach? at Moscow?s embassy after accusing the official of ?activities incompatible with diplomatic status,? a term that normally denotes espionage, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
NEIL MacFARQUHAR
