Ukraine urges talks on standoff

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) ― Ukraine’s premier went before the United Nations on Thursday to urge Russia to negotiate an end to the standoff between their countries, as street battles in his homeland turned bloody.

At least one pro-Kiev protester was stabbed and killed in the eastern city of Donetsk when a demonstration in favor of Ukrainian unity was attacked by a Russian separatist crowd.

News of the death broke as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk addressed an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on the crisis opposing his interim government and the Kremlin.

Yatsenyuk said a negotiated solution was still possible, if Russia agrees to withdraw its forces from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and begin a serious diplomatic dialogue.

“We want to have talks. We don’t want to have any kind of military aggression,” he insisted, turning to directly address Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.

Churkin ridiculed the idea that there had been an “idyllic situation” before the crisis, but said: “Russia does not want war and nor do the Russians, and I’m convinced that Ukrainians don’t want this either.”

Ukraine and Russia have been locked in an escalating standoff since Feb. 22, when a street revolt overthrew Ukraine’s former pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin refuses to recognize Yatsenyuk’s new pro-Western administration, and tensions are building between rival camps inside Ukraine.

The crisis could come to a head on Sunday when Crimea ― now occupied by pro-Moscow forces ― is due to hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia.

Yatsenyuk has a strong diplomatic hand.

His government has been recognized by European powers, he won the full backing of U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Wednesday and he is negotiating an IMF bailout.

But the facts on the ground favor Putin.

Russia’s military is far larger than Ukraine’s, and Russian troops have already seized control on the Crimean peninsula, home to a mainly ethnic Russian population and Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Moscow makes no secret of its plan to annex Crimea after Sunday’s referendum, which Kiev and Washington have declared illegitimate ― promising the worst East-West split since the Cold War.

Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine, rival protests between pro- and anti-Russian factions have turned bloody, threatening to draw the opposing security forces into conflict in the streets.

A 22-year-old Ukrainian was killed when a pro-Kiev rally in Donetsk was attacked by a pro-Moscow group, the first confirmed death since Crimea was seized.

“According to preliminary conclusions by doctors, he has been stabbed,” the local branch of Ukraine’s health ministry told AFP, as regional authorities spoke of another 16 wounded in the clashes.

Thirteen of these were in trauma or in surgery with serious injuries, one was hospitalized and two were treated at the scene, said Ilya Suzdalev, a spokesman for the regional authorities.