GENEVA — The United States, Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union reached an agreement on Thursday evening that called for armed pro-Russian bands in eastern Ukraine to surrender the government buildings they have seized and that outlined other steps to defuse a crisis that has rattled the international community.
The diplomatic accord, while limited in scope, represented the first time Russia and Ukraine had found common ground since protests toppled a pro-Moscow government in Kiev, leading the Kremlin to annex the Crimean Peninsula and threaten other parts of Ukraine with 40,000 troops on its border. The deal came hours after Ukrainian security forces killed three pro-Russian activists in a firefight.
But neither President Obama in Washington nor President Vladimir Putin in Moscow signaled that the crisis in Ukraine was over. During a long televised question-and-answer session before the agreement was announced, Putin asserted historic claims over Ukrainian territory and the right to send in Russian troops.
Speaking after the agreement was announced, Obama sounded a skeptical note, saying it offered “a glimmer of hope,” but “we’re not going to count on it,” and adding that the United States would take more punitive action if Russia did not abide by its terms.
“My hope is that we actually do see follow-through over the next several days,” Obama told reporters at the White House, “but I don’t think, given past performance, that we can count on that, and we have to be prepared to potentially respond to what continue to be efforts of interference by the Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine.”
Obama did not outline what those measures might be, but aides said that the White House had assembled a list of more Russian figures and institutions to sanction if Russia did not pull back and the situation in Ukraine continued to worsen. The president does not plan to impose more stringent measures against whole sectors of the Russian economy unless Moscow sends in troops or otherwise takes more drastic steps, aides said, a recognition of resistance in Europe, which is more tied economically to Russia.
Hoping to coordinate a future response with European leaders, Obama spoke by telephone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. Vice President Joe Biden called Slovakia’s prime minister for the second time in recent days to press him to help reverse the flow of a natural gas pipeline to provide Ukraine with energy if it is cut off by Russia.
Tension on the ground continued to mount in the hours before the Geneva agreement was announced. Pro-Russian protesters tried to storm a Ukrainian base in the eastern city of Mariupol, prompting a firefight that left three of the activists dead, 13 wounded, and 63 captured, according to Ukraine’s interim interior minister. In Donetsk, where pro-Russian militants have taken over a government building, fliers appeared ordering Jews to register with authorities.
And in the hours after the accord, brokered in part by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, militants occupying the government building in the name of the newly declared and wholly unrecognized People’s Republic of Donetsk said that they would not be bound by anything Russia had agreed to.
Roman Velikodny, who called himself commandant of the occupied building, said he had no intention of asking militants to leave until after a referendum that would allow residents of the region to choose autonomy from Kiev.
“Before they let people openly express their opinions on the future of this land, we won’t leave the building,” he said. “There will be no handing over of weapons and buildings before people express their views.”
Vasili Domashev, who described himself as an aide to the commandant, said the armed men would not leave because they did not trust the Kiev government. “Lavrov and Kerry decided, but who are they to us?” he said as a guard sat beside him, tapping the flat side of a samurai sword against his boot. “We are the Donetsk Republic. We have people who make their own decisions.”
The Geneva agreement — hammered out during six hours of talks between Kerry; Lavrov; Andrii Deshchytsia, the interim Ukrainian foreign minister; and Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief for the European Union — called on all sides in Ukraine to refrain from violence or provocative behavior and rejected all forms of intolerance, including anti-Semitism.
“All illegal armed groups must be disarmed,” the joint statement said. “All illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.”