World News
Ukraine crisis: Biden says Russia must 'start acting'─── 15:39 Tue, 22 Apr 2014
US Vice-President Joe Biden has said Russia must "stop talking and start acting" to defuse the Ukraine crisis.
He was speaking during a joint press conference in Kiev with interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
He was speaking during a joint press conference in Kiev with interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Mr Biden warned Russia that further "provocative behaviour" would lead to "greater isolation" and urged Moscow to end its alleged support for pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the funerals took place for three men shot on Sunday.
In the Church of the Holy Spirit in the centre of Sloviansk, an Orthodox priest chanted prayers for the dead. The bodies of three pro-Russian activists, shot dead at a makeshift checkpoint on Easter Sunday, lay in open coffins.
When the coffins were carried out of the church, the crowd outside shouted "Glory to the Heroes of the Donbass!" over and over again - Donbass being the name for the Don River basin. Church bells rang out.
The people I've been speaking to here are convinced that it was Ukrainian ultranationalists who carried out Sunday's attack. One woman told me she was proud to be Ukrainian, but that instability and violence was pushing people here to want closer ties to Russia.
They were killed during a raid on a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian separatists near the town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine.
The circumstances remain unclear. The local separatists said the attack was carried out by ultra-nationalist Right Sector militants. Kiev called it a "provocation" staged by Russian special forces.
'Endemic' corruption Earlier in remarks to Ukrainian MPs, Mr Biden said the US stood with Ukraine's new leaders against "humiliating threats" - an apparent reference to Russia.
Mr Biden said Ukraine also faced "very daunting problems" and stressed the need for the new authorities to tackle corruption, which he described as "endemic in your system".
He told members of parliament: "The opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, getting it right is within your grasp."
Mr Biden announced the US would provide an additional $50m to help Ukraine's government with political and economic reforms.
The White House said President Barack Obama agreed Mr Biden should make the two-day visit to Ukraine's capital to send a high-level signal of support for the reform efforts of Kiev's pro-Western government.
Ukraine goes to the polls on 25 May in an election seen as a crucial step in ending the country's deepest political crisis since its independence in 1991.
BBC News
