No breakthrough was expected and none came but preliminary peace talks on Ukraine will continue in Belarus on Friday.<br /><br />Separatist rebel leaders, Ukraine’s informal representative ex-President Leonid Kuchma, Russia’s ambassador to Kyiv and a senior OSCE official took part as, away from Minsk, a war of words raged over who is responsible for the escalating crisis.<br /><br />Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko puts the blame firmly at Russia’s door.<br /><br />“Direct and open aggression has been launched against Ukraine from a neighbouring state,” he said at the opening day of a Kyiv military academy. <br /><br />“That has changed the situation in the conflict zone in a radical way and raises new and more difficult questions for our security bodies.”<br /><br />Poroshenko spoke as his Defence Minister Valery Heletey said on his Facebook page that Ukraine was fighting a “great war” with Russia which could leave tens of thousands of people dead.<br /><br />Having urged negotiations on the ‘statehood’ of southern and eastern Ukraine, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin continued to blame Kyiv for the crisis – for refusing to enter into direct and official political talks with the separatists.
