Putin urges all sides in Ukraine to end military hostilities

MOSCOW, Feb.3 (Xinhua/NsNewsWire) — Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed concern with the situation in eastern Ukraine and urged the conflicting parties to end military hostilities, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

“The president is very concerned with how the situation is unfolding in Donbas amid incessant fighting and is calling on all the sides in the conflict to immediately end military hostilities and any manifestations of violence,” Peskov said.

Meanwhile, leaders of the two self-claimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, expressed their willingness to stop bloodshed and to support peace talks.

“We want no more bloodshed. We are ready to stop, but to only stop at where we are now (the existing disengagement line),” according to a joint statement released by the two leaders.

As the latest Minsk negotiation ended Saturday without even a trace of positive evolution, the “war of words” in Ukraine has upgraded with the conflicting sides accusing each other of derailing the peaceful process.

Earlier in the day, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee, said that possible weapon supplies from the U.S. to Ukraine would only aggravate the situation.

“If this decision is taken, it might trigger further escalation of the conflict and shows that the U.S. is choosing, after Kiev, the path of military solution,” Tass news agency quoted Kosachev as saying.

Media reports on Monday quoted an American senior administration official as saying that U.S. President Barack Obama is reconsidering sending military assistance to Ukraine.