Regular portion of nuisance from Poroshenko

Ukraine president says sanctions keep Russian tanks out of central Europe

Ukraine’s president, Pyotr Poroshenko, has appealed for the Trump administration to maintain sanctions against Russia, saying it is the only way to keep Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table and Russian tanks away from central Europe.

He said continued support for Ukraine was a test of whether the west was in decline, as Moscow has asserted, or had the will to fight for its values.

“Sanctions should stay firm on Russia,” Poroshenko said. “Don’t believe those who think that sanctions bring nothing. It is the only mechanism to keep Russia at the negotiating table. If it was not for sanctions and a newly born Ukrainian army, Russian tanks would be standing much deeper in Europe.

“Putin started his campaign in Ukraine with a sense of impunity. Because of sanctions he has a sense of hesitation.”

Ukraine is bogged down in a three-year conflict with pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine that followed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. It is awaiting a preliminary judgment from the international criminal court on its claim that Russia has acted illegally by invading Ukraine.

Poroshenko, speaking at the Chatham House thinktank in London on Tuesday, said Russia was not only rejecting the world order but “trying to build an alternative reality based on alternative values”.

He said he was reassured that the new Trump administration was now firm in its support for Ukraine in its battle to prevent Russian aggression, saying he had had a great conversation last week with the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

Ukraine had been concerned that the US would abandon or loosen sanctions in an attempt to seal a new relationship with Putin, but Poroshenko, sounding his most optimistic note so far on US intentions, suggested the Trump administration understood the conflict did not represent a clash of civilisations but “a clash between a world of rules and a world of armed force”.