Russia said on Wednesday it could not order “self-defense” forces in Ukraine’s Crimea region back to their bases ahead of crucial ministerial talks in Paris aimed at easing tensions of over Ukraine and averting the risk of war.
The European Union meanwhile offered Ukraine’s new pro-Western government 11 billion euros in financial aid in the next couple of years provided Kiev reaches a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
Russia and the West are locked in the most serious confrontation since the end of the Cold War over influence in the former Soviet republic, a major commodities exporter and strategic link between East and West.
Ukraine pulled out of a trade deal with the EU under Russian pressure last year, sparking months of protests in Kiev and the February 22 ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich, a Russian ally.
Russia has effectively occupied Crimea, where its Black Sea fleet is based, raising international tensions and provoking sharp falls in financial markets on Monday, although they have since stabilized.
Speaking before meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other Western ministers in Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Moscow’s assertion – ridiculed by the West – that the troops that have seized control of the Black Sea peninsula are not under Russian command.
Asked whether Moscow would order forces in Crimea back to their bases, Lavrov told a questioner in Madrid: “If you mean the self-defense units created by the inhabitants of Crimea, we give them no orders, they take no orders from us.
“As for the military personnel of the Black Sea Fleet, they are in their deployment sites. Yes, additional vigilance measures were taken to safeguard the sites… We will do everything not to allow any bloodshed.”
Russia did not attend a meeting with Kerry, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia of the so-called Budapest group created to assure Ukraine’s security after it abandoned nuclear weapons in 1994.
But Kerry and Hague said they would try to bring the Russian and Ukrainian ministers together later in the day.