US and Russia Step Up Diplomacy on Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine - Vitali Klitschko, the former champion boxer and a leader of the recent political uprising in Ukraine, said on Saturday that he was abandoning his candidacy for president and would instead support the billionaire Petro Poroshenko as a united candidate seeking stronger democracy and a more certain pro-Western path for the country.

'The presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25 should join society and not become another war of everyone against everyone,' Mr. Klitschko said at a meeting of his political party, the United Democratic Alliance for Reform. 'This can be achieved only if you do not split the votes between the democratic candidates.'

Mr. Klitschko said he would run instead for mayor of Kiev with a goal of transforming the city into a 'truly European capital.'

The move by Mr. Klitschko, who enjoys wide name recognition because of his fame as a boxer, could propel Mr. Poroshenko to a commanding lead in the election, where his most prominent contender will likely be Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the country's former prime minister and a familiar figure in the country's tumultuous opposition movement.

The announcement came as diplomatic efforts to calm tensions over Ukraine continued between Russia and the West. Those tensions, the worst since the end of the Cold War, have grown especially fraught as the United States said Russia was massing troops on the border of Ukraine, heightening fears that it would invade the eastern part of the country and not limit its conquest to Crimea, which it annexed this month.

A day after the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin reached out to President Obama to try to peacefully resolve the standoff over Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by telephone on Saturday. Mr. Lavrov said Russia had 'no intention' of sending troops to Ukraine, according to a transcript.

Mr. Kerry delayed his return to the United States and was traveling to Paris so he could meet with Mr. Lavrov as early as Sunday.

'We are bringing our approaches closer together,' Mr. Lavrov said. 'My last meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in The Hague and my contacts with Germany, France and some other countries show that a possible joint initiative that could be offered to our Ukrainian partners is taking shape.'

The Russian solution emphasizes a federation - allowing for greater autonomy for eastern Ukraine, with its heavy concentration of ethnic Russians. The emphasis on Moscow on a federation is seen partly as an attempt to ensure that Ukraine does not coalesce into a strong pro-European, anti-Russian country right next door.

Mr. Lavrov rejected as 'absolutely unacceptable' the formula devised by Western officials, whereby Russia and Ukraine would negotiate directly with each other under Western auspices. Mr. Lavrov said. The Russians reject the current leadership in Kiev as illegitimate.

The crisis began after anti-government protests eventually led to the ouster of Ukraine's then-president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who had turned against closer trade and other ties with the West under pressure from Russia.

Ukrainian leaders hope the upcoming election will restore some political calm. On Saturday, Mr. Poroshenko hailed the decision by Mr. Klitschko to step aside, saying it would serve the goals of the thousands of people who demonstrated for more than three months in hopes of putting Ukraine on the path to a pro-Western political future.

'It would be a betrayal if we did not unite,' Mr. Poroshenko said in a speech to the United Democratic Alliance for Reform congress Saturday.

Mr. Poroshenko said that it was clear in light of the popular uprising, and the deaths of more than 80 demonstrators in clashes with the police before Mr. Yanukovych's ouster, that officials had an obligation to be more responsive to the public. .

'Up until now in Ukrainian politics there has not been a case when two candidates for president who have the highest levels of support could take the step to unite,' he added.

An aide said that Mr. Poroshenko would file paperwork to become an official candidate by Saturday evening.

On Thursday, Ms. Tymoshenko announced that she would run for president as the candidate of the Fatherland party. Ms. Tymoshenko, Mr. Yanukovych's archrival, spent two and a half years in prison on charges that her supporters and the West have long criticized as politically motivated. Mr. Yanukovych narrowly defeated her in Ukraine's 2010 presidential election.

A spokesman for Ms. Tymoshenko, who was attending her own party congress on Saturday, did not have an immediate response to Mr. Klitschko's announcement.

Ms. Tymoshenko is by the far the best-known politician in the race and an extremely charismatic speaker. But she faces an uphill climb, given the public's deep mistrust of anyone with long experience in politics and government in a country with a long history of corruption and mismanagement. Ms. Tymoshenko served twice as prime minister and has been a prominent political figure for more than a decade.

Russia has spoken out strongly against some prospective candidates in the presidential elections, especially Dmytro Yarosh, a right-wing activist who heads the Right Sector ultranationalist coalition.

Other candidates, like Mikhail Dobkin, who was nominated on Saturday by Mr. Yanukovych's former party, have called for greater autonomy for regions from the central government as pro-Russian sentiment in the east has grown in cities where many wish for closer ties with Moscow rather than Europe.

Another veteran politician, Sergey Tigipko, a former vice prime minister and head of the Ukrainian national bank and an ally of Mr. Yanukovych's, also recently declared his candidacy for president, as an independent. Mr. Tigipko was elected to Parliament most recently as a member of Mr. Yanukovych's Party of Regions and had served in the Yanukovych government. In the last weeks of the protests in Kiev, however, he had been trying to negotiate some compromise that would ease Mr. Yanukovych from power.