Update | Kerry pledges support in Kiev as US prepares US$1b aid package for troubled Ukraine
US secretary of state reaches out to new government and its people
The Obama administration readied economic sanctions against Russia on Tuesday as it formally announced an aid package of US$1 billion in energy subsidies to Ukraine amid worries that Moscow would extend its military reach into the mainland of the former Soviet republic.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kiev for a show of support for the fledgling Ukraine government as it grapples with a military takeover of Crimea, a strategic, mostly pro-Russian region in the country’s southeast.
“It is clear that Russia has been working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further,” Kerry said. “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. That is not 21st-century, G-8, major nation behaviour.”
Kerry headed straight to Institutska Street at the start of an hours-long visit intended to bolster the new government that took over just a week ago when Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych fled. Kerry placed a bouquet of red roses, and twice the Roman Catholic secretary of state made the sign of the cross at a shrine set up to memorialise protesters who were killed during mid-February riots.
“We’re concerned very much. We hope for your help, we hope for your assistance,” a woman shouted as Kerry walked down a misty street lined with tyres, plywood, barbed wire and other remnants of the barricades that protesters had stood up to try to keep Yanukovych’s forces from reaching nearby Maidan Square, the heart of the demonstrations.
Piles of flowers brought in honour of the dead provided splashes of colour in an otherwise drab day that was still tinged with the smell of smoke.
“We will be helping,” Kerry said. “We are helping. President Obama is planning more assistance.”
