Lithuanian Foreign Minister: Security situation in Eastern Ukraine not improving

  • 2017-04-25
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS - The security situation in Eastern Ukraine is not improving, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Pavlo Klimkin, in Vilnius on Monday.

"The security situation in Eastern Ukraine is definitely not improving," Linkevicius said during a joint news conference.

The death of an American paramedic working for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's monitoring mission in Eastern Ukraine is further proof that the situation in the east of the country is bad, he noted.

The killing was the first death of an OSCE member in the three-year war in Ukraine. Two monitors from the Czech Republic and Germany were wounded in the incident.

Klimkin, in turn, reiterated his call on Russia-backed separatists to give OSCE monitors full access.

According to him, Ukrainian officials continue to watch Russian troops crossing the border, but they have learned to counter the aggression over the three years.

"In these three years of Russian aggression, we created (...) the way and the ability to counter the Russian military, the Russian mercenaries," he said.

Linkevicius said that he believed that Ukraine would be shortly granted visa-free travel to the EU and that the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement would be ratified.

At the same time, he underlined that the country had to step up efforts to fight corruption and carry out reforms.