US Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Washington stands by Ukraine’s new pro-Western leaders in the face of "humiliating threats".
US Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Washington stands by Ukraine's new pro-Western leaders in the face of "humiliating threats".
"You face very daunting problems, and some might say, humiliating threats," Biden told a group of lawmakers in a meeting at Ukraine's parliament.
The US would "stand with" Ukraine ahead of a presidential poll scheduled for May 25 that "may be the most important election in Ukrainian history," he said.
Biden's symbolic two-day visit to Kiev came as Washington and Moscow traded blame over the crisis in the ex-Soviet country, with US says its Russia’s responsibility to fulfill an accord struck last week aimed at reducing tensions in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War.
Under the deal signed by Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union in Geneva, all militias in the country were supposed to disarm and give up control over seized state property.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to put pressure on the pro-Russian separatists, which Washington sees as backed by the Kremlin.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Washington to influence the Ukrainian government, which Moscow accuses of "grossly breaching" the Geneva deal.
Kerry told Lavrov that "concrete steps" to defuse the crisis should include "publicly calling on separatists to vacate illegal buildings and checkpoints, accept amnesty and address their grievances politically", said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
In Moscow, the foreign ministry said Lavrov had asked Kerry to "pressure Kiev to stop hotheads from provoking a bloody conflict and to encourage the Ukrainian authorities to strictly fulfill their obligations".
Lavrov also accused Ukraine's government of an "inability and unwillingness" to rein in Pravy Sektor ("Right Sector"), an ultra-nationalist group the separatists blamed for a deadly attack Sunday on one of their checkpoints near the flashpoint town of Slavyansk.
