Kerry Takes Offer of Aid to Ukraine and Pushes Back at Russian Claims

In a demonstration of support for Ukraine’s fledgling government and a new swipe at Russia, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kiev on Tuesday with an offer of $1 billion in an American loan guarantee and pledges of technical assistance.

Trudging through a damp mist, Mr. Kerry stopped first for an emotional visit to improvised memorials where protesters were gunned down last month as they voiced opposition to what was then Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin government.

Mr. Kerry placed a lighted candle at one of the shrines, which were draped with flowers and photographs of some of the victims; met with religious leaders; and listened to Ukrainians who beseeched him for help.

“We hope Russian troops will leave Crimea, and we also hope for your assistance,” a Ukrainian woman told Mr. Kerry as he walked along Instytutska Street.

“We are trying very hard,” Mr. Kerry responded. “We hope Russia will respect the election that you have.”

But there was no indication that Russia was prepared to reverse its intervention in Crimea, and Mr. Kerry later warned that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, might be preparing to expand the scope of his country’s military operation into eastern Ukraine.

“It is clear that Russia has been working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further,” Mr. Kerry said at a news conference at the American Embassy here.

He took issue with Mr. Putin’s version of events, which justified Moscow’s military action in Crimea, an autonomous republic of Ukraine, by saying it was to defend the region’s Russian population.

“It is not appropriate to invade a country and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve,” Mr. Kerry said. “That is not 21st-century, G-8, major-nation behavior.”

The centerpiece of the American aid package is the $1 billion loan guarantee. It is intended to cushion Ukrainian households as the new government undertakes wrenching economic changes that are expected to be demanded by the International Monetary Fund, and as it contends with the reduction of energy subsidies from Russia, which has challenged the new government’s legitimacy.

Source: Hindi News

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