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U.S. Announces New Sanctions in Ukraine Crisis Crimea Plans a Vote to Secede From Ukraine as Discord Rises
(about 1 hour later)
ROME — The United States escalated its response to Russia’s military and economic threats to Ukraine on Thursday, announcing it has imposed visa bans on officials and others deemed responsible for actions that have undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The volatile confrontation over the future of Ukraine took another tense turn on Thursday as Russian allies here in Crimea sought annexation by Moscow and the United States imposed its first sanctions on Russian officials involved in the military occupation of the strategic peninsula.
The new sanctions, promulgated by the Obama administration, carried the threat of further steps. The announcement came as the European Union took its first steps toward punitive measures and as Secretary of State John Kerry met for a second day with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on ways to defuse the Ukraine crisis, one of the most serious East-West confrontations since the Cold War. While diplomats raced from meeting to meeting in an effort to end the standoff, European leaders signaled they might join American sanctions and Moscow threatened countermeasures as an already jittery situation was made edgier by the opening of new Russian military drills.
Russian officials reacted angrily and suggested that Russia would reciprocate with its own anti-American sanctions. The pro-Russian regional Parliament in Crimea crossed another red line set by the United States and Europe by voting to hold a referendum on whether to secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia. It scheduled the vote for March 16, hoping to win popular approval for the Russian military seizure of the region. But authorities in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, backed by the United States and Europe, denounced the move.
“The U.S. has the right, and we have the right to respond to it,” Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights commissioner and a former ambassador to the United States, was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying. “But all that is, of course, not making me happy.” Hours after issuing his first punitive actions against specific Russians, President Obama reached out to President Vladimir V. Putin in an hourlong telephone call emphasizing a diplomatic settlement. Mr. Obama urged Mr. Putin to authorize direct talks with Ukraine’s new pro-Western government, permit the entry of international monitors and return his forces here to their bases, according to the White House.
In Washington, President Obama said the new sanctions were intended to demonstrate that the world stands united against the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula this past weekend. “These decisions continue our efforts to impose a cost on Russia and those responsible for the situation in Crimea,” he said. “Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine,” Mr. Obama said in his only public remarks on the crisis on Thursday. “In 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders.”
Mr. Obama emphasized that they were taken “in close coordination with our European allies,” in effect rejecting efforts by Russia to split the United States from its partners on the other side of the Atlantic. “I’m pleased our international unity is on display at this important moment,” he said. European Union leaders issued a statement in Brussels calling an annexation referendum “contrary to the Ukrainian Constitution and therefore illegal.”
But he reached out to Moscow, calling for a de-escalation of the crisis by allowing international monitors into all of Ukraine, including Crimea, and opening talks between Russia and Ukraine. “There is a way to resolve this crisis that respects the interests of the Russian Federation as well as the Ukrainian people,” he said. The sanctions Mr. Obama approved Thursday imposed visa bans on officials and other individuals deemed responsible for undermining Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. The administration would not disclose the names or number of people penalized, but a senior official said privately that it would affect just under a dozen people, mostly Russians but some Ukrainians.
Hours after issuing the actions against specific Russians, Mr. Obama held an hour-long telephone call with President Vladimir V. Putin, emphasizing a diplomatic resolution. Mr. Obama urged Mr. Putin to authorize direct talks with Ukraine’s new pro-Western government, permit the entry of international monitors and return his forces here to their bases, according to the White House. Among those targeted were political figures, policy advisers, security officials and military officers who played a direct role in the Crimea crisis, the official said. Any of them seeking to travel to the United States would be barred, and a few who currently hold American visas will have them revoked. The list will grow in the days ahead as events warrant, officials said.
Mr. Kerry also emphasized diplomacy in his remarks to reporters in Rome, saying the sanctions promulgated by the administration were structured to create the space for negotiations with Moscow. Mr. Obama also signed an executive order laying out a framework for tougher measures like freezing assets of individuals and institutions. But the White House held back applying those measures while officials gathered evidence in the hope that waiting would provide some space for Russia to reverse course. The House, in the meantime, approved an economic aid package for the Kiev government and advanced its own sanctions resolution.
“We want to be able to have the dialogue that leads to the de-escalation,” he said after his meeting with Mr. Lavrov. “We want to be able to continue the intense discussions with both sides in order to try to normalize and end this crisis.” Moscow, however, gave no indication of backing down, suggesting that it would reciprocate with measures seizing American property in Russia. “The U.S. has the right, and we have the right to respond to it,” Vladimir Lukin, a Russian envoy who has worked on the Ukraine crisis, told Interfax, the Russian news agency. “But all that is, of course, not making me happy.”
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said earlier Thursday in a statement announcing the sanctions that the visa ban would apply to those “responsible for or complicit in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” American officials said that meant the measure could apply to Russians as well as Ukrainians. The European Union took a step toward more serious measures by suspending talks with Moscow on a wide-ranging political-economic pact and on liberalizing visa requirements to make it easier for Russians to travel to Europe. European leaders laid out a three-stage process that, absent progress, would next move to travel bans, asset seizures and the cancellation of a planned E.U.-Russia summit meeting and eventually to broader economic measures.
The new restrictions expand the visa bans that had already been imposed on those considered responsible for human rights abuses and political oppression in Ukraine in recent months, particularly in February when dozens of antigovernment protesters in Kiev, the capital, were killed by forces loyal to Viktor F. Yanukovych, the pro-Kremlin president who then fled for Russia. The interim government that took over is regarded by Russia as illegitimate. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been reluctant to move quickly toward sanctions, said the European Union was looking for concrete evidence that Russia was trying to calm the situation “in the next few days,” but she noted that Thursday’s events in Crimea made the need for action more urgent.
In addition to the new restrictions, President Obama issued an executive order that provides the legal basis for imposing sanctions on “individuals and entities” who have undermined Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “We made it very clear that we are absolutely willing to achieve matters by negotiation,” she said. “We also say, however, that we are ready and willing, if these hopes were to be dashed and looking at what happened on Crimea, to adopt sanctions.”
The restrictions also apply to those who have misappropriated Ukrainian assets or have asserted authority over parts of Ukraine without the approval of its government, a reference to officials in the Russian-populated Crimea Peninsula who claim that they have broken free of Ukraine and who are seeking Russian protection. The moves came as Secretary of State John Kerry met for a second day with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on ways to defuse the Ukraine crisis. A top aide said Mr. Kerry urged Mr. Lavrov to talk directly with Ukrainian leaders. “We want to be able to have the dialogue that leads to the de-escalation,” Mr. Kerry told reporters. “We want to be able to continue the intense discussions with both sides in order to try to normalize and end this crisis.”
The sanctions under the executive order could include freezing assets or preventing Americans from doing business with certain individuals. Mr. Kerry also met in Rome with counterparts from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, and expressed support for a push by Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, to establish a “contact group” seeking a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The group would include Russia, Ukraine, Britain, France, and the United States and serve as a way to bring Moscow and Kiev to the table.
The executive order “is a flexible tool that will allow us to sanction those who are most directly involved in destabilizing Ukraine, including the military intervention in Crimea,” the White House statement said, adding that it “does not preclude further steps should the situation deteriorate.” Mr. Lavrov expressed irritation at talk of sanctions and other retaliation. “There are many one-sided, half-hysterical evaluations in the media,” he told reporters. “I repeated this to John Kerry, who seems to understand that it doesn’t really help the flow of normal work. It’s impossible to work honestly under the threat of ultimatums and sanctions.”
Mr. Kerry’s discussions with Mr. Lavrov, a continuation of their talks in Paris on Wednesday, were held on the margins of a conference in Rome about how to support the Libyan government. Mr. Kerry also met with the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain. In Crimea, regional leaders said they were confident voters would choose Russia over Ukraine. The City Council of Sevastopol, which has separate legal status, took matching steps on Thursday to hold a similar referendum on March 16. Pro-Russian demonstrators cheered the news and regarded secession from Ukraine as a foregone conclusion.
Initially, the visa ban will affect just under a dozen people — Ukrainians and Russians, but mainly Russians -- and includes a range of political figures, policy advisers, security officials and military officers who played a direct role in the Crimea crisis, a senior Obama administration official said in Washington. “The list starts modestly, but it will grow quickly,” said the official, who predicted the number of people denied visas — or had existing visas cancelled -- could double within a couple of weeks. At least a couple of the individuals on the lists already have American visas, which will be cancelled within the next 24 hours, the official said. “We’re already Russian,” Natasha Malachuk said as she picketed a local security headquarters.
Although the executive order paves the way for additional sanctions, no foreign entities were sanctioned under the measure on Thursday, a senior official said. Another protester, Vyacheslav Tokarev, declared, “We’re citizens of Russia; we’re returning home.”
A block on visas is the easiest step for the Obama administration to take because it can be imposed immediately and at the sole discretion of the government. But Washington cannot publicly disclose the names of those who are subject to the ban, which limits its effectiveness. People would know that they had been barred only if they applied for a visa to travel to the United States or, if they already had a visa, if they were told it had been revoked. Others objected, particularly the peninsula’s large Crimean Tatar minority. “It’s completely illegitimate,” said Bilal Kuzi-Emin, 25, a Tatar who works as a waiter. “Why don’t we just join Turkey?”
The executive order would permit the government to go further. It would allow Washington to issue new visa bans that would let targets be identified publicly, and it could authorize asset seizures. But officials cautioned that it would take time to develop such financial measures because, unlike with a visa ban, they have to have evidence that could withstand a challenge in court. A Kiev court has already ruled the Crimean Parliament’s actions illegal. An arrest warrant has been issued for the new regional prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, who was installed a week ago after armed men seized the Parliament building and raised the Russian flag.
The United States’ European partners, who were meeting in Brussels, were told about the move in advance. Officials said that the measures had been planned for a while and were not set off by plans for Crimea to hold a referendum on March 16 on joining Russia. Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, scoffed at a planned referendum under the watch of foreign troops. “This will be a farce,” he said in a televised address. “This will be false. This will be a crime against the state.”
The announcement, a senior official said, should prompt individuals in Russia and Crimea to wonder if they are going to “find their name on a list.” Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, said the Kremlin had been informed of the developments but offered no further comment. Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev said Russia would simplify procedures for people who have lived in Russia or the former Soviet Union to secure Russian citizenship.
There was no immediate reaction from Mr. Putin after the White House statement was released. If the referendum is held and most Crimeans opt to join Russia, it could create a thorny problem for the United States and European countries that typically support self-determination but oppose independence for regions in their own borders, like Scotland or Catalonia. Russia points to the example of Kosovo, which was welcomed by the West as an independent nation without support from Serbia’s central government.
Mr. Lavrov, meeting with journalists after conferring for 40 minutes with Mr. Kerry, expressed irritation and said he had been assured that the United States had no list of officials who would be targeted by the sanctions. In Crimea, Russian and pro-Russian forces maintained a blockade of Ukrainian military facilities. At a local military office in Simferopol, they used a crane to place heavy concrete barriers to obstruct military vehicles leaving the compound. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the Russian navy scuttled an old cruiser in a narrow channel to trap Ukrainian naval vessels in port at Novoozerne.
“I drew the secretary of state’s attention to the fact that the incessant fanning up of the atmosphere continues, there are some secret lists of Russian citizens who will be forbidden entry to the United States,” he said. “He assured me that these lists do not exist. There is only an instruction, but this does not change things. It is still a threat.” In Donetsk, in the east, Ukrainian police officers ordered pro-Moscow demonstrators, including Pavel Gubarev, the so-called people’s governor, to leave the city’s administration building. Hundreds more pro-Russia demonstrators clashed with the police outside the local headquarters of the national security service in Donetsk, blockading a police bus with parked cars and derailed trolleys and forcing the police to release detained protesters. Later on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said Mr. Gubarev had been arrested.
Mr. Lavrov also expressed regret about the suspension of activities in the Group of 8, the conference of leading industrialized nations of which Russia is a member, as well as the NATO-Russia Council.
“There are many one-sided, half-hysterical evaluations in the media,” he said. “I repeated this to John Kerry, who seems to understand that it doesn’t really help the flow of normal work. It’s impossible to work honestly under the threat of ultimatums and sanctions.”
A senior State Department official said that Mr. Kerry had again urged Mr. Lavrov to talk directly with the new Ukrainian government. “The two discussed possible formats for how that dialogue might take place,” said the official, who cannot be identified under the protocol for briefing reporters.
Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, hinted at one possible format: a “contact group” that would include Russia, Ukraine, France, and the United States, among other nations. Mr. Fabius said the idea of forming such a body and institutionalizing the negotiations over Ukraine had been discussed on Wednesday in Paris.
Russian business and finance circles have been nervous since Monday, unsure of what economically punitive steps the United States and the European Union might take, said Igor Y. Yurgens, a former Kremlin adviser who now heads the Institute of Contemporary Development, a Moscow research organization. He said the text in the White House statement was so broad that it was unlikely to directly affect most major Russian businesses.
Mr. Yurgens said there was less at stake in the trade relationship with the United States, which amounts to $40 billion a year, and that many were braced for a European Union meeting scheduled for Friday, where member states may formulate their own sanctions. “Then it’s $600 billion, and that’s existential,” he said.
In Brussels, the 28-nation European Union announced measures to freeze the assets of Mr. Yanukovych, and of 17 of his closest aides and family members, holding them responsible for the embezzlement of state funds.
The European Union also took the first step toward more serious and concrete diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia by immediately suspending talks on a wide-ranging political and economic pact and on visa liberalization, which would have made it easier for Russians to travel to Europe.
European Union leaders also laid out a three-stage process that could end in economic sanctions if the Russians failed to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine and work toward a diplomatic solution.
But there was no hard timetable for more punitive action. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been reluctant to move quickly toward sanctions, said the European Union was looking for concrete evidence that Russia was trying to calm the situation in Ukraine “in the next few days.”