US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Kiev late Sunday to reassure its pro-Western leaders that Washington remains committed to Ukraine despite stepped-up efforts to work with Russian Federation against Islamic State jihadists.
Advertisement
Speaking on conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have been locked in a battle with pro-Russia separatists for the past 20 months, he assured lawmakers of continued USA support, calling on Russian Federation to comply with the Minsk cease-fire agreement created to ease tensions over the conflict or face continued sanctions.
Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Monday that “this agreement will enter force on January 1, and this agreement is in the interests of the European Union and Ukraine”.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks before Ukraine’s parliament Tuesday, one day after announcing $190 million in new U.S. aid to Ukraine.
He said that “the United States will never recognize” Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and will continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Also Monday, Biden met with Kyiv Mayor Vitality Klychko and congratulated him on adopting important police, transparency and procurement reforms in the capital city.
Biden also took the opportunity to urge Ukrainian authorities to do more to tackle the rampant graft that has plagued the county for much of its recent history, amid growing discontent among Ukrainians over Poroshenko’s seeming inability to end the scourge. There is that much-repeated assertion that the Ukrainians are exhausted of reforms.
“We saw oligarchs ousted from power, only for them to return”, Biden said.
The ministry added that Russian Federation had offered Ukraine better terms than those the International Monetary Fund had asked for.
Former President George H.W. Bush was the first high-ranking USA official who addressed Ukrainian parliamentarians on August 1st, 1991, which occurred only three weeks prior to its declaration of independence.
Biden, visiting Kiev for the fourth time in two years, warned against repeating the broken reform promises of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which failed to curb the clout of the businessmen that control Ukraine’s biggest companies and influence politics. “There’s no question they are concerned with Syria and not with Ukraine at the moment”.
Advertisement
While two people were sentenced to four years each for their roles in attacks on a group of activists, at least two key suspects in the killing of Ukraine’s “Heavenly Hundred” were allowed to escape the country, along with the officials believed to have ordered the attack.
