Obama Says U.S. Ready to Move on Russia Sanctions
President Barack Obama said the U.S. and its allies have additional sanctions against Russia ready to go as the crisis in Ukraine escalated with Ukrainian security forces moving against pro-Russian separatists.
Russia has yet to act in the spirit or the letter of an agreement reached in Geneva last week to defuse the confrontation, and if there’s no progress in the coming days, “we will follow through,” Obama said.
“We have been preparing for the prospect that we’re going to have to engage in further sanctions,” Obama said today at a news conference in Tokyo after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. All that’s required is some “technical work” and coordination with allies, he said.
Obama spoke as Ukraine restarted an offensive against separatists in eastern cities. Russia issued a warning that it would protect its citizens in Ukrainian territory, raising the prospect of a military move by the government in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that an attack on a Russian citizen “is an attack against the Russian Federation.”
“If we are attacked, we would certainly respond,” Lavrov said in an interview with the state-run broadcaster RT.
The U.S. has begun deploying hundreds of troops for exercises in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, days after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization boosted the defense of member states in eastern Europe.
No Military
Obama again stressed that “there’s not going to be a military solution” to the confrontation and held out the chance that diplomacy will work.
“There’s always the possibility that Russia tomorrow or the next day takes a different course,” he said.
The U.S. joined the European Union in imposing sanctions as Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine last month. “Already you’ve seen a whole lot of money and investors leave Russia,” Obama said, citing the effect on the Russian economy.
Russian and Ukrainian assets suffered yesterday. Russia failed to sell local-currency bonds due August 2023 at an auction and the Micex Index (INDEXCF) lost 0.5 percent, extending its slide since March 1 to more than 9 percent. Ukrainian bonds tumbled, lifting yields on the government’s dollar-denominated notes due 2023 by 0.08 percentage point to 10.05 percent, the highest in a month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
IMF Bailout
Ukraine’s shrinking economy may get a boost from an International Monetary Fund loan. The Washington-based lender’s staff endorsed a $17 billion bailout that may get board approval next week, according to government officials who’ve seen the recommendations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
An accord to disarm rebels signed last week in Geneva by Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the U.S. is at risk of collapse, as Ukrainian and Russian officials accuse each other of violating the agreement.
Operations to clear militants from Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and other cities were under way yesterday, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Yarema said.
The town of Sviatogirsk was freed yesterday without casualties as part of the government’s “anti-terrorist” operation, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website. Ukraine’s SBU State Security Service pledged to use “all means” to restore order in the east.
Lavrov Accusation
As many as 1,300 separatists are involved in holding government buildings in the Donetsk region, according to the SBU. Twenty-one Russian agents, including three intelligence officers, have been arrested or detained, SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said during an online discussion sponsored by the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s effort to uproot pro-Russian separatists from eastern cities was put on hold over the Easter holiday. With the Geneva deal crumbling, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov urged security forces on April 22 to move against the militants after the discovery of two bodies near Slovyansk, saying “terrorists” backed by Russia had “crossed the line.”
The government in Kiev accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of instigating turmoil to possibly lay the groundwork for an invasion. The separatists who took over buildings in eastern Ukrainian cities say they’re not subject to the Geneva accord.
Ukraine hasn’t fulfilled a single clause of the April 17 pact, Lavrov told RT, accusing the U.S of “running the show.”
40,000 Troops
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Ukraine and the U.S. have a distorted interpretation of the Geneva accord and are ignoring provocations by right-wing extremists. The government in Kiev should pull its military back from Ukraine’s southeast, the ministry said.
Lavrov called Turchynov’s order for the operation in Ukraine’s eastern region “criminal.”
Putin has parliamentary approval to deploy troops in Ukraine to protect Russian speakers and those of Russian heritage. He has about 40,000 troops massed on the border with Ukraine, according to NATO.
There are signs Ukraine is implementing the Geneva pact, according to Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton. The bloc is calling on Russia “to use its leverage to ensure an immediate end to what is going on in eastern Ukraine,” he told reporters in Brussels yesterday.
A week after NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance will upgrade contingency plans, hold more military drills in eastern Europe and step up air and naval policing on its flanks, the U.S. began sending airborne infantry to four member nations bordering Russia.
A contingent of 150 troops from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team arrived in Poland yesterday for a month of training, according to Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. Similar-sized units will be sent to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia by next week, Warren said.
(By Margaret Talev, Phil Mattingly and Daryna Krasnolutska)
Source: ibtimes
