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Ukraine Welcomes Sanctions Against Russia Ukraine Welcomes Sanctions, While Russia Belittles Them
(about 3 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — A senior Ukrainian official said Wednesday he welcomed the expanded sanctions against Russia that were announced this week by Western nations, while Russian officials belittled them, saying they would only make Russia economically stronger. KIEV, Ukraine — The day after the European Union and the United States announced expanded sanctions against Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Moscow remained defiant, the Ukrainian Army remained on the offensive, and an international team remained unable to reach the crash site of a Malaysian jetliner.
The Ukrainian authorities also said they would not scale back their military offensive against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, even as fighting impeded the Dutch police and other international experts from reaching the crash site of a Malaysian airliner for a fourth straight day. A senior Ukrainian official, Valeriy Chaly, said on Wednesday that his country welcomed the expanded sanctions, while Russian officials condemned and belittled them, saying they would prompt Russia to strengthen its economy but would just make a sour diplomatic atmosphere worse.
Valeriy Chaly, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s presidential administration, said in a briefing with journalists on Wednesday that Ukraine was seeking a peaceful solution that would allow international experts to reach the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was downed over southeastern Ukraine on July 17. But he added that Kiev’s offensive against the rebels would continue during the investigation. Mr. Chaly, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s presidential administration, told reporters in Kiev on Wednesday that his government would not scale back its offensive against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, which he said had already freed 60 cities and towns and more than one million residents from rebel control.
“Rebels sometimes try to use international investigation to stop this,” Mr. Chaly said, referring to the Ukrainian offensive. But Mr. Chaly denied that the military was trying to seize control of the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by force. “We are not ready for such a scenario without the agreement of our international partners,” he said. “Our partners have pushed us to find another solution” for experts to gain access to the site and begin their investigation.
Earlier on Wednesday, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe failed to reach the crash site after their route was blocked by reports of fighting and gunfire. As a result, a mission of Dutch police officers and experts also said they would not travel to the site on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe tried to get to the site but were turned back by reports of fighting and gunfire along the route. And a mission of Dutch police officers and experts said that after being similarly blocked on Monday and Tuesday, they would not attempt the journey on Wednesday.
In a terse statement, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, the head of a Dutch recovery mission, said it would “continue to try to reach the crash in the coming days, but it remains questionable whether the situation will become safer.” Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, the head of a Dutch recovery mission, said he did not “expect the security situation to improve enough over the next few days” to make a visit to the crash site possible.
The team has not been able to reach the site of the downed plane since arriving in Donetsk on Sunday. “We will nonetheless continue tirelessly in our efforts to achieve our goal: to bring back the victims and their personal belongings,” he said. The mission has been in Donetsk, the nearby provincial capital, since Sunday.
The Ukrainian Army in recent weeks has taken 60 cities and towns with a total population of more than one million citizens from under rebel control, Mr. Chaly said. “The investigation does not mean that will be stopped.” “The experts have to work in a safe environment,” he said. “Because of all the gunfire in the area, this is currently not possible. This is a reality we have to deal with.”
He denied, however, that Ukraine had imminent plans to take the crash site by force. The government of Belarus, a neighboring country on good terms with both Kiev and Moscow, said on Wednesday that it has been asked by President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine to host talks among Ukraine, Russia and the O.S.C.E. over access to the crash site and other issues, Reuters reported. The office of President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said that “all interested parties” were invited to attend, the news agency reported, but it was not clear whether the separatists would be represented, nor when the talks would convene.
“We are not ready for such a scenario without the agreement of our international partners,” Mr. Chaly said. “Our partners have pushed us to find another solution.” Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for the Ukrainian government’s National Security and Defense Council, said the main obstacle to reaching and securing the wreckage of the plane was rebel resistance. “At the crash site of the Boeing 777, the terrorists have made new fighting positions,” he said. “They have amassed their heavy artillery, and they mined the approaches to this territory. This made impossible the work of international experts who began trying to carry out their duties and establish the reasons for the crash.”
Mr. Chaly also said that Ukraine “welcomes” the expansion of sanctions against Russia that were announced by Europe and the United States on Tuesday. For its part, the Russian government said Ukraine and the United States were fueling the violence in the area. “It’s not Russia, but the Kiev regime and its overseas sponsors who are to blame for the growing number of victims among the civilian population of the eastern regions,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“What even a month or a month and a half ago was considered impossible has become a reality,” Mr. Chaly said. “We hope by joint action of the international community we will be able to convince our neighbor to stop the aggression against us.” It said the expanded sanctions announced on Tuesday would make peace harder to achieve. Imposing them, it said, can only result in “further aggravation of Russian-American relations, and the creation of an extremely unfavorable background in international affairs, where collaboration between our countries often plays a decisive role.”
The coordinated sanctions go beyond targeting Russia’s banking and defense industries, as they have in the past, and would inhibit Moscow’s access to Western technology as it tries to tap various oil reserves. Dmitry O. Rogozin, the Russian deputy prime minister in charge of the military industry, suggested that the United States had imposed new restrictions on arms and technology sales to Russia out of fear of its growing might. He said on Twitter that the measures were “a sign that Russian military shipbuilding is becoming a problem for the enemies of Russia.”
In Moscow, the reaction was a combination of defiance and dismay, as when the two previous rounds of sanctions were announced. Sergey Ryabuhin, head of the budget committee in the upper house of the Russian Parliament, called the sanctions pointless, saying they would serve only to make Russian manufacturing stronger by reducing reliance on imports.
Dmitry O. Rogozin, the deputy prime minister in charge of Russia’s defense industry, suggested that the United States had imposed the sanctions out of fear of Russia’s growing might, and used his Twitter feed to call the measures “a sign that Russian military shipbuilding is becoming a problem for the enemies of Russia.” “For the past 23 years,” he told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, “the United States and the European Union have conditioned our liberal economists to the fact that we should not engage in high-tech manufacturing, we only need to buy.”
Sergey Ryabuhin, head of the budget committee in the upper house of Parliament, described the sanctions as pointless and said they would only serve to make Russian manufacturing stronger. But Ukrainian leaders saw in the sanctions announcement a new unity and resolve in the West to rein in Russia. “What even a month or a month and a half ago was considered impossible has become a reality,” Mr. Chaly said. “We hope by joint action of the international community, we will be able to convince our neighbor to stop the aggression against us.”
“For the past 23 years,” he told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union, “the United States and the European Union have conditioned our liberal economists to the fact that we should not engage in high-tech manufacturing, we only need to buy.” For the Russian business community and political analysts, the expanded sanctions were a blow to Russia’s economic prospects and a worrying sign that the country was becoming increasingly isolated.
VTB, one of the newly sanctioned banks, which is more than 60 percent owned by the government and among Russia’s largest, issued a statement saying that restricting its access to the European credit market would “not affect the bank’s work nor its credit rating.” Some of the affected companies issued statements minimizing the impact. VTB, a major Russian bank in which the government has a majority stake, said that the new restrictions on its access to European financial markets would “not affect the bank’s work, nor its credit rating,” and had not been imposed because of anything the bank had done. “We consider this decision purely politically motivated, unjust, contradictory to the law and reciprocally harmful for the economy,” the bank said.
The company said it met the decision with “regret,” but called it a political decision and not reflective of anything the bank had done. “We consider this decision purely politically motivated, unjust, contradictory to the law and reciprocally harmful for the economy,” it said. Investors bid down the value of the ruble by 0.26 percent against the dollar on Wednesday, but the main Russian stock market gauge, the Micex index, was up by 1.55 percent at midafternoon.
The ruble fell against the dollar, which was trading at 35.73 rubles on Wednesday, down 0.26 percent from a day earlier, according to figures from Russia’s Central Bank. The stock exchange was up, however, with the Micex index gaining 1.55 percent by midafternoon. Opposition voices in Russia said the economy would nonetheless pay a price for what they called President Vladimir V. Putin’s misguided policy in destabilizing Ukraine.
For the business community and political analysts, the sanctions — the most sweeping thus far — were another blow to the country’s economic prospects and a worrying sign that Russia was becoming increasingly isolated. Some opposition voices used the opportunity to say that the Russian economy would have to pay the price for what they called President Vladimir V. Putin’s misguided policy in destabilizing Ukraine. “I was asked whether sanctions will stop Putin?” Boris Y. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote on his Facebook page. “My answer is no, they won’t,” he wrote, suggesting that sanctions might even fuel Mr. Putin’s zeal to punish Ukraine for trying to leave Russia’s orbit. “Only the Russian people can stop him, when they ultimately understand that the crazy man cornered and impoverished them,” he said. “But it won’t happen right away. The withdrawal sickness and hangover will be long and painful.”
“I was asked whether sanctions will stop Putin?” Boris Y. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister under Boris N. Yeltsin and now an opposition politician, wrote on his Facebook page. “My answer is no, they won’t,” he wrote, suggesting that sanctions might even fuel Mr. Putin’s zeal to extract a price from Ukraine for trying to leave Russia’s orbit for Europe’s. “Only the Russian people can stop him when they ultimately understand that the crazy man cornered and impoverished them. But it won’t happen right away. The withdrawal sickness and hangover will be long and painful.”