Ukraine

Ukraine on Wednesday (9 October) refused to pull back troops in its restive east, saying for the second time this week that continued shelling by pro-Russian separatists there precluded the implementation of a disengagement agreement. Moscow, however, said the door was still open for a fresh meeting of the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany (the so-called Normandy Four) … .

Russian troops must leave Russia-occupied east Ukraine, among other conditions, before Kiev agrees to give the self-proclaimed "republics" there greater autonomy, Ukrainian negotiators said in Minsk on Wednesday at a meeting of a Contact Group on the conflict.

The Council has extended the restrictive measures over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine for a further six months, until 15 March 2020. The measures consist of an asset freeze and travel restrictions. They currently apply to 170 persons and 44 entities.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will deliver his first report on the human rights situation in Russian-annexed Crimea at the international body’s next general assembly, which opens on September 17. The report, published on August 2, says it is “limited to information collected through remote monitoring” because Russia would not give workers from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) access to the occupied Ukrainian peninsula.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday (26 August) that the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France would hold talks in September aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “We think that the conditions exist for a useful summit,” Macron, who has hailed the election of a new president in Ukraine as providing an opportunity to end the five-year war, said at the end of the G7 summit in France.

Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas, called for top diplomats from Russia and Ukraine to meet for a renewed push to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The reform of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) was high on the agenda at the August 13 meeting between the head of the National Security and Defense Council (RNBO) and an international advisory group composed of representatives of the European Union, NATO, and the United States.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the leaders of Russia, Germany and France to resume talks on a peaceful solution to the separatist conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region after four soldiers were killed in shelling Tuesday.

Russia and the separatists it backs in Ukraine’s east are no longer quite on the same page, especially since the Kremlin abandoned ideas of annexing the breakaway republics or recognising their independence. The rift gives the new Ukrainian president an opportunity for outreach to the east’s embattled population, including by relaxing the trade embargo.

The human cost of the conflict in Ukraine is growing, the UN political chief told the Security Council on Tuesday, during a briefing on the current situation in the country. DiCarlo’s briefing to the Council was delivered just days before Ukrainians vote in parliamentary elections on July 21.