U.S. talks to Russia but moves more warplanes to region
U.S., allies slowly put squeeze on Russia
(about 4 hours later)
PARIS – The Obama administration claimed progress Wednesday toward resolving a Cold War-style standoff with Russia over its military incursion in Ukraine, even as the Pentagon moved to reassure nervous NATO allies by positioning fighter jets closer to Russia.
PARIS — The United States and its European allies incrementally tightened the noose of their disapproval around Russia on Wednesday, agreeing to send more money to Ukraine, dispatching international observers and more U.S. aircraft to the region, and edging closer to direct sanctions against Moscow.
“I’d rather be where we are today than where we were yesterday,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said after a chaotic day of diplomatic outreach to Russia. He added that he did not want to raise false hopes of an immediate end to the confrontation, the worst with Russia since Russian forces moved into Georgia six years ago.
With little movement reported on the ground in Crimea, the autonomous Ukrainian region where Russian troops have taken control, attention focused on a chaotic day of diplomatic meetings in Europe.
The United States and Britain appeared to maneuver throughout the day to draw Russia into talks with Ukraine’s acting foreign minister. The Ukrainian diplomat, Andrii Deshchytsia, traveled to Paris on Kerry’s plane Tuesday in hopes of beginning diplomatic talks that the United States and Britain see as a way for Russia to back away from confrontation.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry held his first direct meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, since street protests in the Ukrainian capital turned deadly last month and led to the ouster of Kiev’s pro-Russia government. No progress was reported after the session, held at the home of Russia’s ambassador to France, but Kerry and Lavrov agreed to keep talking.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters Wednesday that many foreign ministers gathered in Paris for an unrelated meeting on Lebanon were urging Lavrov to sit down with the Ukrainian diplomat.
Kerry cautioned against assuming “that we did not . . . have serious conversations. We have a number of ideas on the table,” he told reporters, even as he reiterated the U.S. position that Russia’s military movement into Crimea is unacceptable.
The goal is to “bring the Russians into a diplomatic process,” Hague said, “at least a start of it.”
Lavrov did not show up at a separate meeting with Kerry, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, who flew here on Kerry’s plane from Kiev.
Deshchytsia spent much of Wednesday waiting for a meeting that never came, and Kerry denied during a late evening news conference that such a face-to-face had ever been the goal.
Kerry later told reporters that he had had “zero expectation” that Lavrov would accept an invitation to come to that meeting but that it would have been “inappropriate” for world powers to discuss Ukraine’s fate without that country’s representative.
“I had no expectation, zero expectation,” Kerry said, adding that Deshchytsia was present because it would have been “inappropriate” for world powers to discuss Ukraine’s fate without him.
Asked at a news conference about the Ukrainian minister — part of a government that Russia claims is illegitimate — Lavrov replied: “Who is it?”
The East-West standoff over Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, has escalated in the days since a pro-Russian government collapsed and former opposition leaders took over. They have promised elections in May. Russia does not recognize the temporary government in Kiev and insists that fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych is Ukraine’s legitimate leader.
A photo of Kerry and Lavrov tweeted by Russia’s Foreign Ministry showed the two looking in opposite directions, with a caption noting that although they didn’t always see eye to eye, communication was important.
The United States claims that thousands of Russian troops have flowed into Crimea in the past several days. The Black Sea area has a majority Russian-speaking population and many there identify strongly with Moscow. Moscow has said those residents’ rights are threatened by what it considers an illegitimate “coup” in Kiev.
No similar quips emerged from a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels. A NATO diplomat, describing the session as “tense,” said alliance members one by one confronted Alexander V. Grushko, Russia’s representative to NATO, with charges that Moscow was violating international law in Crimea and concocting threats against ethnic Russians there to justify its actions.
Russia has made no move to withdraw forces to their bases in Crimea, where Russia maintains a naval outpost. Ukraine is unlikely to fight to keep Crimea, however, and neither the United States nor its allies appear willing to commit military forces.
“It was quite an uncomfortable meeting,” said the diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door session. When it was over, NATO announced that it was suspending collaboration with Russian armed forces on several fronts, including planning for Russia to provide a maritime escort for the U.S. ship that is to destroy Syrian chemical weapons at sea in the spring.
NATO announced Tuesday that it would strengthen ties with Ukraine by stepping up involvement with the country’s “civilian and military leadership.” Although Ukraine is not part of the 28-member alliance, NATO also said it would help to strengthen the Ukrainian army with joint training and exercises.
Before meeting with the Russians, alliance ambassadors traveled from NATO headquarters across town in Brussels for a rare meeting with representatives of the European Union’s policy and security committee.
The United States followed up with word that it would move additional F-15 fighter jets and a refueling tanker from Britain to Lithuania at the request of Baltic nations that are members of the alliance originally formed as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.
E.U. representatives gave preliminary approval to a $15 billion aid package of loans and grants to Ukraine over the next several years, on top of a U.S. announcement Tuesday of $1 billion in energy loan guarantees.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also said that NATO was reviewing the “entire range” of its cooperation with Russia, and that staff-level and military meetings with Russian counterparts would no longer take place.
The European package, to be approved at an E.U. summit Thursday, would be partially conditioned on reforms to Ukraine’s tanking economy. Kiev estimates that it needs $35 billion in international rescue loans over the next two years.
The Obama administration is especially keen to offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a face-saving way out of a confrontation with the West that is building toward U.S. and possible European sanctions on Russia.
E.U. leaders will also consider recommendations that they impose sanctions on 18 Ukrainians, including former officials, accused of looting the national treasury.
The United States has made Russia a key partner in diplomatic overtures involving Syria and Iran, and wants to avoid further rupture. Obama is offering to consider Russia’s concerns over the future of Russian speakers in Ukraine “point by point,” the administration said, and proposes a team of international monitors in the flashpoint Crimean Peninsula.
In Washington, a senior official said there were ongoing discussions within the administration about whether the United States should unilaterally impose sanctions on Ukrainian and Russian individuals connected with corruption and the recent violence in Ukraine. Although the administration is prepared to move forward within days, “we want to coordinate with the Europeans to be most effective,” said the senior official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the discussions.
Kerry and Hague first invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to a meeting Wednesday morning in Paris with the Ukrainian official. The Russian did not attend.
Some European governments with significant financial equities in Russia are reluctant to move toward major sanctions against that nation’s economy and have urged the sequential approach that the administration and its partners are now taking.
“Regrettably missing one member,” Kerry said at the start of the morning session of nations that signed a 1994 agreement for post-Soviet Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon also announced, in response to what officials said were requests from Eastern European NATO members over the past week, that it would more than double the number of aircraft it has based in Lithuania as part of a regular alliance air-defense patrol.
"This is my first trip to such an important venue where the Ukrainian future, maybe the future of the region, will be decided," Deshchytsia said. "We want to keep neighborly relations with the Russian people. We want to settle this peacefully."
The patrols over the Baltic nations were initiated a decade ago and are rotated quarterly among NATO members that have the appropriate aircraft. The United States, by coincidence, is in charge of the patrols this quarter and is sending six F-15 fighter jets and a KC-135 tanker to add to the four F-15s already deployed at Lithuania’s Siauliai Air Base.
Lavrov did turn up later in Paris, where foreign ministers were gathered to discuss Lebanon and the Syrian refugee crisis. Those talks were largely overtaken by the Ukraine crisis, which was the subject of Kerry and Lavrov’s first face-to-face discussion since street protests in Kiev turned deadly last month.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said his Russian counterpart told him Wednesday that the troops in Crimea “were not regular forces. They were well-trained militia forces responding to threats to ethnic Russians in the Crimea.”
At the start of the meeting at the home of Russia’s ambassador to France, Lavrov joked that he had one more staff member on his side of the table than Kerry had on his. Kerry added a military adviser, then opened a thick briefing book.
Dempsey said he could not “at this time” tell Congress “where the military forces inside the Crimea came from.” But “I did suggest” to Gen. Valery Gerasimov “that a soldier looks like a soldier looks like a soldier, and that the — that distinction had been lost on the international community.”
“Big file,” Lavrov observed dryly.
To emphasize that point, the State Department issued what it said was a “fact sheet” titled “President Putin’s Fiction,” disputing point by point the Russian leader’s claims that the troops in Crimea did not include newly deployed Russian forces, that in any case Russia’s actions were legal under international agreements, and that ethnic Russians and Russian bases in Crimea were under threat from Ukrainian “extremists.”
“That is not all you,” Kerry replied.
In a separate meeting Wednesday in Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said 18 of its participating states were sending 35 observers to Ukraine “to dispel concerns about unusual military activities.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry tweeted a photo of Kerry and Lavrov sitting across from one another at the meeting table, but looking in opposite directions. The Russian-language caption noted that although the two do not always see eye to eye, communication is important.
The United States and its allies have warned Russia not to extend its military deployments into eastern Ukraine, where ethnic Russians dominate. More immediately, they have called on Russia to return its troops to Crimean bases, where they are stationed under a long-standing agreement with Ukraine; to accept international monitors to verify the situation in Crimea; and to open talks with the interim Ukrainian government.
"We had a long day of discussions on Ukraine " Lavrov told reporters as he left a later session at the French Foreign Ministry. "We agreed to continue those discussions in the days to come to see how best we can help stabilize, normalize the situation and overcome the crisis."
As of Wednesday, the senior administration official said, the Russians “are not backing down from their ridiculous claims, but also have not taken further steps. So it’s status quo.”
Asked whether he had met his Ukrainian counterpart, Lavrov replied, “Who is it?”
DeYoung reported from Washington.
“I didn’t see anyone," he added.
Kerry said he and Lavrov considered several ways to lower tensions, though he gave no details, and said intensive discussion will continue.
“Don’t assume that we did not … have serious conversations which produced creative and affirmative ideas and possibilities for how we can resolve this,” Kerry said. “We have a number of ideas on the table.”
He reiterated the U.S. position that Russia’s military movement into Crimea is unacceptable. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be preserved, he said. Kerry visited the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Tuesday to demonstrate support for the new leadership there, and to make a point to Moscow that its military move would not go unchallenged.
Despite Kerry’s entreaties for calm, the State Department tweaked Putin a bit Wednesday, releasing a statement concerning “10 False Claims About Ukraine” attributed to the Russian leader.
Standoffs continued Wednesday between Russian and Ukrainian warships in a Crimean port. The United Nations envoy for Ukraine, Robert Serry, turned back from a planned fact-finding trip to Crimea after an altercation with armed men and a pro-Russian crowd.
Russian officials continued to deny that their forces were spread out across the Crimean Peninsula. Lavrov, speaking in Madrid before he arrived in Paris, said Wednesday that all the armed men who arrive in Russian troop transports, with Russian plates, are local self-defense militias.
In Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu denied Wednesday that any of his troops had strayed from their bases in Crimea, despite videos and photos that suggested otherwise.
“No, absolutely not,” he responded when asked by reporters if there were any Russian troops in Crimea outside their own bases.
Hague said the West is insisting that Russia's military pull back to its Black Sea base as a first step, but he did not mandate a Thursday deadline as European diplomats had earlier warned.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday that economic sanctions against Russia will be discussed by the European Union when its leaders meet Thursday. “We cannot accept, we members of the international community, a country that invades another,” Fabius said on his Twitter account.
The European Union will consider sanctions against Russia if there is no calming of the Ukraine crisis, he added.
In Brussels, the European Union gave preliminary approval to a $15 billion aid package of loans and grants to Ukraine in the coming years, on top of a U.S. announcement Tuesday of $1 billion in energy loan guarantees.
The E.U. package is “designed to assist a committed, inclusive and reforms oriented Government in rebuilding a stable and prosperous future for Ukraine,” said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The package would be phased in over several years, and would be partially conditioned on reforms to Ukraine’s tanking economy. Kiev estimates it needs $35 billion in international rescue loans over the next two years.
The package is to be formally approved Thursday, along with sanctions on 18 Ukrainians accused of looting the country’s treasury.
The aid is geared to help modernize Ukraine's transit system to use natural gas, much of which comes from Russia.
In what may be a jibe to Moscow, the E.U. package would also speed the process for allowing Ukrainians to travel to the 28-naton bloc without visas. Russia has been seeking that accommodation for many years.
