Ukraine marks Independence Day ahead of new school-year truce
By RFE/RL
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other foreign defense officials have gathered in Kyiv to attend celebrations marking Ukraine's Independence Day.
Mattis, the first U.S. defense secretary to visit Ukraine in a decade, is also scheduled to hold talks on August 24 with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak.
The 26th anniversary of Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union comes as the Kyiv government and Russia-backed separatists in the country's east committed to a cease-fire before the start of the new school year.
Several truce deals announced as part of the February 2015 Minsk agreement have failed to hold since the separatists seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which border Russia, in April 2014.
The United Nations estimates that at least 10,090 people, including 2,777 civilians, have been killed, and at least 23,966 injured in fighting between government forces and the separatists.
Mattis and the defense ministers of Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, and Poland were due to attend a military parade in Kyiv marking Independence Day, according to Ukrainian presidential aid Yuriy Biryukov.
On the eve of the celebrations, Poroshenko sat with the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and Montenegrin ministers for a meeting he described as "an important demonstration of our unity and solidarity in the face of common challenges."
U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter of congratulations to Poroshenko, saying that the United States will continue to support Ukraine's "sovereignty and integrity" and the country's "aspirations of becoming a truly European nation," according to the Ukrainian presidential website.
The Pentagon has said that in his talks in Kyiv, Mattis will "reassure our Ukrainian partners that the U.S. remains firmly committed to the goal of restoring Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as strengthening the strategic defense partnership between our two countries."
Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, is also in the Ukrainian capital. He told Current Time TV last month that the Trump administration is considering sending Kyiv weapons to help government forces defend themselves against the separatists.
Volker told the Russian-language network, which is run by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America, that he did not think arming Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons would "provoke Russia to do more than they are already doing."
U.S. media reported on August 6 that the Pentagon had recommended sending a package of lethal defensive military aid to Ukraine worth about $50 million.
The weapons package would reportedly include Javelin shoulder-launched antitank missiles, which Kyiv has long sought to defend against the Russia-backed forces it has been fighting in its east for more than three years.
Latest Truce
Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said forces fighting in eastern Ukraine had committed to a cease-fire before the September 1 return to school for children.
Martin Sajdik, the envoy for the OSCE on the Ukraine crisis, said on August 23 that an "indefinite" cease-fire would commence at midnight on August 25.
In a statement, the chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, called the truce " an encouraging joint, political signal from all signatories" of the Minsk agreement.
The deal set out steps to end the war and resolve the status of the portion of the Donbas region held by Russia-backed separatists, but progress toward implementation has been very slow.
Separatist leader Denis Pushilin was quoted on the separatists' main news site late on August 23 as saying that his fighters "supported a stable and universal cease-fire along the contact line" in the Donbas.
The latest cease-fire was agreed late on August 22 during a phone call between the leaders of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine -- the so-called "Normandy Four."
In the call, Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron all voiced strong support for a lasting cease-fire to allow children in eastern Ukraine to attend school at the start of the new term, the Kremlin and Poroshenko's press service said.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Moscow for its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and for its support of separatists in eastern Ukraine. (w/Interfax, TASS, AP, UNIAN, Reuters, AFP)