{"id":1216,"date":"2015-02-26T11:11:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T11:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2015-02-26T11:11:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T11:11:53","slug":"us-accuses-russia-of-destabilizing-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-accuses-russia-of-destabilizing-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"US accuses Russia of &#8216;destabilizing&#8217; Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>The United States has accused Russia once more of &#8220;destabilizing&#8221; Ukraine and warned of additional sanctions if Moscow fails to meet the terms of a recent ceasefire agreement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for implementing policies in eastern Ukraine that \u201cviolate all the international norms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;To date, neither Russia nor the forces it is supporting have come close to complying with their commitments,&#8221; Kerry told the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In Luhansk, and Donetsk, and now in Debaltseve, he has empowered, encouraged, and facilitated directly land grabs in order to try to destabilize Ukraine itself,&#8221; the top US diplomat claimed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces. Moscow, however, denies any involvement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ukraine\u2019s warring sides reached a deal, dubbed Minsk II, at a summit attended by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on February 11 and 12.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The agreement, which went into effect on February 15, introduced measures such as a ceasefire, a pullout of heavy weapons and constitutional reforms in Ukraine by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nonetheless, Russia says Kiev and its Western allies have twisted the peace deal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">During Wednesday\u2019s congressional hearing, Kerry also said US President Barack Obama has a number of options against Russia and would make an appropriate decision after consultations with European leaders.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Plan B is tougher sanctions and additional support to Ukraine,&#8221; he added. &#8220;We\u2019re getting to that critical decision time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United States and the European Union have already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia, including visa bans and asset freezes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">AHT\/AGB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States has accused Russia once more of &#8220;destabilizing&#8221; Ukraine and warned of additional sanctions if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1,125],"tags":[75,24,20,7,22],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-united-states","tag-conflict","tag-eu","tag-russia","tag-u-s","tag-ukraine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/John-Kerry.jpg?fit=620%2C342&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-jC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}