As Liberation puts it in its headline, Putin continues play a double game.
The newspaper publishes how Poroshenko’s peaceful plan is implemented practically. “Russia supports the cease-fire initiation, but continues supplying weapons and volunteers to Ukrainian separatists.”
www.russian.rfi.fr
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma had a successful speech in Donetsk.
Together with his old friends Viktor Medvedchuk and Nestor Shufrych the former president conducted a successful talks with separatists from Luhansk and Donetsk along with Russia’s Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and Heidi Tagliavini, head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine. The newspaper thinks the latest U.S. and European Union warnings play an important role in the talks’ realization. Europe, along with the U.S., have said repeatedly they are ready to move if the situation in Ukraine deteriorates.
online.wsj.com
Karl Bildt points out Russian side does not meet its commitments.
He thinks Poroshenko’s plan could really create conditions for peace restoration if Kremlin supports it. Everything depends on whether the situation near the Russian-Ukrainian border will be put under control.
www.welt.de
The major outflow of investable funds was in Russia. EU withdrawn 11 billion euros from Russia.
On the other side, the US invested 313 billion euros in Europe’s economics. Brazil invested 21 billion euros, Switzerland – 18 billion euros, then Japan, Hong Kong and Russia.
www.zeit.de
US presses NATO members to increase defence spending up to 2% of GDP. Along with increasing defence spending, Western generals think about how to struggle against Russian covert tactics.
“There is a new appreciation that Russia has acquired a very sophisticated capacity for what is being labelled asymmetric, unattributed aggression, which is a combination of political pressure, economic pressure, cyber, propaganda, special forces, surrogates, infiltrators, equipment provision,” Guardian quotes Brigadier-General George Schwartz, of the US National Guard
www.theguardian.com
