Russia Agrees to Ukraine Monitors as West Warns on Troops By James G. Neuger, Olga Tanas and Daryna Krasnolutska Mar 22, 2014 5:43 AM PT ussia agreed to international monitors arriving in Ukraine after Western nations voiced growing concern over the Kremlin massing troops on the border with its neighbor. While talks about the monitors with Russia were “difficult,” their presence may help avoid escalation, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Kiev today. The mission will initially have 100 monitors, which may increase by 400 across Ukraine, the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said yesterday. The six-month mission is meant to cool tensions in the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. As Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday completed the annexation of Crimea, which isn’t part of the OSCE’s mandate, the two sides exchanged salvos of sanctions, raising concern about further escalation. U.S. President Barack Obama will meet allies during a Europe visit starting March 24. The OSCE “will continue their efforts to rebuild bridges and find cooperative solutions to the major political and security challenges that Europe is now confronted with,” Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, the chairman of the 57-nation group that focuses on conflict prevention and preserving human rights, said in the statement. Military Exercises With Putin’s annexation of Crimea completed, attention shifted to whether Russia would seek to claim other parts of Ukraine. White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S. was monitoring developments on Russia’s frontier with Ukraine. “The Russians have stated that they are intending military exercises,” Rice said at a briefing yesterday in Washington. “Obviously, given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.” The presence of Russian forces near Ukraine’s border and protests by pro-Russian activists in the east and south of Ukraine have raised alarms that Putin may push further into the second-most-populous former Soviet republic. European leaders signaled that Russia may face further repercussions if it doesn’t stop what they see as destabilizing actions. Switching Flags Fewer than 2,000 of the more than 18,000 Ukrainian troops in Crimea have said they want to leave, Russian state-run news service RIA Novosti reported, citing the Russia’s Defense Ministry. Russian flags have been raised over 54 of 67 Ukrainian ships and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his forces to allow the orderly exit of Ukrainian troops, RIA said. Ukraine’s TV5 reported that pro-Russia forces used smoke bombs to mount an assault on a Ukrainian base in Crimea and were demanding its capitulation. Pro-Russia troops are also threatening to storm Crimea’s Belbek airport, near Sevastopol, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said on Facebook. If Russian troops enter east Ukraine, it “would trigger far-reaching consequences in a broad range of economic areas,” U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters yesterday after a summit in Brussels. “That must include the key areas like finance, like the military, like energy,” he said, adding that “Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia.” Ukraine’s government, which yesterday signed the political chapters of an association accord with the EU, discussed military cooperation with European partners, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in Kiev today. Putin’s Disregard Russia’s moves to claim Crimea highlight Putin’s disregard for the post-Cold War security order in Europe, according to Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There’s nothing Vladimir Putin would rather do than to de-legitimize the post-Cold War order, expose the transatlantic partnership as a sham, and deeply degrade U.S. leadership in the world,” Kuchins told reporters yesterday. “He’s already gone pretty far down that path in the past three weeks.” Leaders of the U.S., the EU, China, Japan and other nations meet in The Hague starting on March 24, and President Barack Obama plans to use the gathering to mobilize opposition to Russia’s incursion into Crimea. While ruling out military action, Obama has joined European leaders in warning of further consequences if Russia fails to yield. The U.S. is focusing on diplomatic and economic tools to defuse the crisis, Rice told reporters. “Our interest is not to see the situation escalate and devolve into hot conflict,” she said. EU Sanctions The EU, moving more slowly than the U.S. on sanctions, yesterday expanded to 51 individuals its list of Russians and Ukrainians punished with asset freezes and travel bans. Twelve new names published by the EU include five officials close to Putin who already face U.S. sanctions. Among them is Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who mocked his banishment by the U.S. as the product of “some joker,” and two deputy commanders of the Black Sea fleet in charge of Russian forces that occupied Crimea. The U.S. on March 20 widened its list of people targeted to 27 Russian officials and four Ukrainians. In addition, Obama that day authorized potential future penalties on Russian industries, including financial services, energy, metals and mining, defense and engineering. Billionaires Targeted Those targeted by the U.S. include billionaire Gennady Timchenko, a co-founder of oil trader Gunvor Group Ltd., and Arkady Rotenberg, a former judo partner of Putin whose companies won more than $7 billion in contracts for the Winter Olympics. Russia’s benchmark Micex Index (INDEXCF) of stocks fell 1 percent, the most among emerging markets, to 1,307.34 by the close, and the yield on government bonds due February 2027 jumped 12 basis points, the most in a week, to 9.42 percent. Russia’s Foreign Ministry is proposing retaliatory steps, as “unanswered sanctions may whet appetites to impose new measures,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told lawmakers. The country reserves the right to impose sanctions following the EU’s decision to expand its list, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement today. The EU said yesterday that Putin so far hasn’t crossed the destabilization threshold. Special trading relationships that several European countries have with Russia, coupled with the fallout from the debt crisis that came close to wrecking the euro, are frustrating a tougher response. Sanctions require the agreement of all EU governments, a process that can’t match Putin’s speed in mobilizing troops, staging a secession referendum in Crimea and moving to annex the Black Sea peninsula. Crimea Referendum Putin says ethnic Russians in the region are at risk from the government in Kiev, a claim that Ukraine denies. Russia backs the recently appointed administration in Crimea that held the disputed March 16 ballot, in which almost 97 percent backed joining Russia. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said his country doesn’t accept Russia’s takeover and won’t allow Russian forces on its mainland. He said yesterday that Ukraine would submit a plan to demilitarize Crimea. “Ukraine will do everything in order to free the occupied territories,” Turchynov told reporters in Kiev after a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. To contact the reporters on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at [email protected]; Olga Tanas in Moscow at [email protected]; Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at [email protected]; John Walcott at [email protected] Scott Rose bloomberg/news/2014-03-22/russian-forces-on-border-stir-concern-as-crimea-annexed.html
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 14:23:39 +0000
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