Poroshenko talks to US Congress

Addressing a joint session of the US Congress ahead of a private meeting with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, on Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for the United States and the world to maintain their support for his government in its fight against separatists by sending supplies "both lethal and nonlethal." On Wednesday, Poroshenko had addressed Canada's parliament in Ottawa.

"It is impossible to imagine what I am feeling right now, how symbolic is the unity of the United States Congress in solidarity with Ukraine," Poroshenko said on Thursday. He added that Ukraine's government needed that "unity and solidarity, not only with the United States Congress, not only with the United States, but with the whole world."

Despite a ceasefire that has mostly held and the granting of new autonomy to separatists, Ukraine's government has sent new equipment and personnel reinforcements to forces stationed in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Thursday in Kyiv. Lysenko alleged that that separatists had continued to violate the ceasefire, with three soldiers injured over the past 24 hours. Lysenko told journalists that fighting overnight had left one emergency worker dead.

According to the city council in Donetsk, separatists reported no deaths in the fighting overnight, however. In a statement published online, the council called the situation in much of the city calm, although occasional explosions continued in a neighborhood in the north, near the government-held airport.

The United States and the European Union have slapped sanctions on Russia, which they accuse of fueling the conflict by sending fighters and regular troops over the border to aid the separatists. The latest round of sanctions have come despite a ceasefire that came into force on September 5.

On Thursday, Poroshenko called Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula following the popular overthrow of his immediate predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, "the most cynical act of treachery in modern history." He called Russia a "neo-Stalinist dictatorship."

"Our nation decided to be free and democratic," Poroshenko said. "Another nation decided to punish Ukraine for this."

Despite the animosity, Poroshenko said he remained in daily contact with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin.

"The dialogue is not easy," Poroshenko said. "Believe me."

'A new job'

On Thursday, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe announced that it would double the number of its observers in Ukraine to 500 to oversee the fragile ceasefire between the government and separatists that the OSCE helped broker 13 days ago.

The organization will deploy the observers over the next two and a half months, said Ertugrul Apakan, who oversees such personnel at the Vienna-based body.

Apakan added that the OSCE aimed to have "more people" that are "more mobile, more flexible" in eastern Ukraine, where five months of fighting has claimed nearly 2,900 lives.

mkg/rc (AFP, dpa, AP)