The United States wants a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine but, if necessary, will help Kyiv defend itself against Russia, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday.
Speaking at an international security conference in Munich, Biden said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly vowed to work for peace but instead had delivered “tanks, troops and weapons” to the conflict. He said Russia should be judged by its deeds, rather than its words.
In spite of past cooperation between Russia and the international community, Putin has chosen a different path, the vice president said.
“America and Europe are being tested,” Biden said. “President Putin has to understand that as he has changed, so has our focus. We have moved from resetting this important relationship to reasserting the fundamental, bedrock principles on which European freedom and stability rests.”
Biden said the U.S. would continue to provide Ukraine with “security assistance,” not to encourage war but to allow Ukraine to defend itself.
“We believe we should attempt an honorable peace,” he said. “But we also believe the Ukrainian people have the right to defend themselves.”
Poroshenko bemoans ‘spiraling tragedy’
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke a few minutes later at the conference, holding up several Russian passports that he said had been collected from Russian soldiers many kilometers inside Ukraine’s border. “This is the best evidence for the aggression and the presence of Russian troops,” he said.
Poroshenko said more than 5,600 civilians had been killed in the conflict since last April and called the conflict “a spiraling tragedy for my nation.”
Talks among the leaders of Russia, France and Germany on a peace initiative ended early Saturday in Moscow without firm results. But a Russian spokesman said work on the plan to end the fighting was going forward.
A senior U.S. State Department official said the French-German plan to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine was based on September’s failed cease-fire agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus.
“What is different is there is a bit more detail around how it will be implemented and more of a road map on timing, but it is broadly consistent with Minsk,” the official told reporters in Munich.
French President Francois Hollande has described the plan as “one of the last chances” to end the fighting in Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the Munich conference that it was unclear whether the peace plan would succeed, but that “it is worth making this attempt. At the very least, we owe it to the people in Ukraine.”
She also voiced opposition to the idea of Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying more weapons would not resolve the conflict. But the U.S. official denied that there was any rift between the United States and Europe on the possibility of supplying arms to Ukrainian forces.
Russia criticizes Western stance
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Munich for talks on the French-German plan.
Lavrov said a deal to end the conflict was still possible, but he had stinging criticism for the U.S. and European stance on Ukraine, saying they had taken steps to escalate the conflict. He said: “Our Western partners issued indulgences and pardoned the Kyiv authorities who started a full-scale military operation, calling their citizens terrorists,” referring to Ukrainians who agree with the pro-Russian separatists.
The Ukraine crisis is high on the agenda at the three-day security conference in Munich, which ends Sunday. The conference has drawn world leaders, diplomats and defense officials.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported that five soldiers were killed in clashes with separatists Saturday in eastern Ukraine, near the port city of Mariupol. The French news agency AFP reported that seven civilians were also killed.
Fighting in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east near the Russian border surged after the breakdown of peace initiatives last week.
VOA State Department correspondent Pam Dockins contributed to this report.
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