Russian foreign minister accuses United States of fueling confrontation in Ukraine

Ukrainian army soldiers leave the administration building after they were released by officials of the self proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" after captivity in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ukrainian army soldiers leave the administration building after they were released by officials of the self proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" after captivity in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister today accused the United States of encouraging Ukraine to challenge Moscow and heavily weighing in on the European Union.

Speaking in televised remarks today, Sergey Lavrov said that “our American colleagues still prefer to push the Ukrainian leadership toward a confrontational path.” He added that chances for settling the Ukrainian crisis would have been higher if it only depended on Russia and Europe.

Lavrov spoke after Friday’s European Union summit, which decided not to immediately impose new sanctions on Russia for destabilizing eastern Ukraine, but gave the Russian government and pro-Russian insurgents there until Monday to take steps to improve the situation.

Ukraine on Friday signed a free-trade pact with the EU, the very deal that angered Russia and triggered the bloodshed and political convulsions of the past seven months that brought Russia-West relations to their lowest point since the Cold War times.

In November, under pressure from Moscow, a former Ukrainian president dumped the EU pact, fueling huge protests that eventually drove him from power. Moscow responded by annexing the mainly Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula in March, and pro-Russian separatists soon rose up in Ukraine’s eastern provinces.

The U.S. and the EU slapped travel bans and asset freezes on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and threatened to impose more crippling sanctions against entire sectors of Russia’s economy if the Kremlin fails to de-escalate the crisis.

The EU leaders on Friday gave Russia and the rebels until Monday to take steps to ease the violence, including releasing all captives, retreating from border checkpoints, agreeing on a way to verify the cease-fire and launching “substantial negotiations” on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan.

The weeklong cease-fire, which both sides have been accused of violating, expired at 10 p.m. local time, but Poroshenko quickly declared its extension until 10 p.m. local time Monday.

Lavrov acknowledged that Russia has some leverage with the rebels, pointing at their move this week to release four observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe after weeks of captivity, but claimed that Moscow’s influence is limited.

“There are reasons to believe that they hear us on other aspects of Russian position regarding the crisis in Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean that they immediately move to heed our calls,” he said.

Four other OSCE observers are still being held, though rebels have promised to release them “in the nearest days.”