Brussels, 28/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 28 August, Ukraine's ambassador to the EU, Konstantin Yelisieiev, called on the EU to take out new sanctions against Russia and for military assistance for his country - as regular Russian troops are reportedly present in Ukraine and have taken cities. “Solidarity must become absolute and undoubted. It should materialise into further resolute significant sanctions and large-scale military and technical assistance to Ukraine in order to stop the aggressor”, he said. “Now is the time when actions should replace words. Since the beginning of Russia's aggression in February, the Council [has] approved 11 conclusions and the European Parliament [has] adopted 4 resolutions urging Russia to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Hasn't it been enough to understand that words in the Kremlin don't matter?” Yelisieiev asked.
Yelisieiev also called for a special extraordinary session of the European Council to be held on Ukraine on Saturday 30 August. The European heads of state and government are meeting to discuss the successor to the high representative of the EU and to the president of the Council on this date, but they will also discuss the crisis in Ukraine. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko is expected in Brussels on 30 August - to meet the presidents of the European Council and European Commission and his counterparts from the European People's Party. However, on Thursday afternoon it was not planned that he would take part in the meeting of heads of state and government.
The chair of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Elmar Brok, called on the European leaders on Thursday 28 August for further sanctions against Russia. In Brok's view, these additional sanctions could focus on hedge funds. “We believe that there should be a possibility to increase the sanctions against Russia”, he said at the end of a meeting of the bureau of the foreign affairs committee, which was attended by European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva and European External Action Service (EEAS) Secretary General Pierre Vimont. Brok stated that all possibilities had to be used to reach a peaceful solution.
EU extremely concerned about possible Russian incursion. Elsewhere, the EU is said to be “extremely concerned by the latest developments, especially the news on the ground”. “We reassert the urgent need for a political solution to this crisis”, said Maja Kocijancic, the spokesperson for High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton. Kocijancic gave assurances that the EU was following developments on the ground closely. Earlier in the day, France's President François Hollande warned that a Russian military presence in Ukraine would be “intolerable and unacceptable”.
On 28 August, Ukraine complained to the OSCE of a “direct invasion of Russian military forces in the regions of Eastern Ukraine”. Regular Russian forces have reportedly taken Novoazovsk and several nearby towns. Russia has refuted these allegations, underlining that there are “no Russian soldiers in Ukraine”. According to a senior military official at NATO, quoted by French news agency AFP, over 1,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting on Ukrainian territory. “They support the separatists and are fighting with them against the Ukrainian armed forces”, he said. The United Nations Security Council was due to hold an emergency meeting at the end of the afternoon on Thursday 28 August to discuss the situation. (CG)