Thread: Putin rebuffs Obama as Ukraine crisis escalates

Reuters
By Lidia Kelly and Alissa de Carbonnel 10 minutes ago

Putin rebuffs Obama as Ukraine crisis escalates

Ukrainian television was switched off in Crimea on Thursday and replaced with Russian state channels. The streets largely belong to people who support Moscow's rule, some of whom have become increasingly aggressive in the past week, harassing journalists and occasional pro-Kiev protesters.

By Lidia Kelly and Alissa de Carbonnel

MOSCOW/SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin rebuffed a warning from U.S. President Barack Obama over Moscow's military intervention in Crimea, saying on Friday that Russia could not ignore calls for help from Russian speakers in Ukraine.

After an hour-long telephone call, Putin said in a statement that Moscow and Washington were still far apart on the situation in the former Soviet republic, where he said the new authorities had taken "absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.

"Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law," Putin said.

Ukraine's border guards said Moscow had poured troops into the southern peninsula where Russian forces have seized control.

Serhiy Astakhov, an aide to the border guards' commander, said there were now 30,000 Russian soldiers in Crimea, compared to the 11,000 permanently based with the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol before the crisis.

Putin denies that the forces with no national insignia that are surrounding Ukrainian troops in their bases are under Moscow's command, although their vehicles have Russian military plates. The West has ridiculed his assertion.

The most serious east-west confrontation since the end of the Cold War - resulting from the overthrow last month of President Viktor Yanukovich after violent protests in Kiev - escalated on Thursday when Crimea's parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, voted to join Russia. The region's government set a referendum for March 16 - in just nine days' time.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Russian government meeting in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence …

European Union leaders and Obama denounced the referendum as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine's constitution.

The head of Russia's upper house of parliament said after meeting visiting Crimean lawmakers on Friday that Crimea had a right to self-determination, and ruled out any risk of war between "the two brotherly nations".

Obama announced the first sanctions against Russia on Thursday since the start of the crisis, ordering visa bans and asset freezes against so far unidentified people deemed responsible for threatening Ukraine's sovereignty.

Japan endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia, whose forces have seized control of the Crimean peninsula, constitute "a threat to international peace and security", after Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the U.N. Security Council, was more cautious, saying that economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the legality of a Crimean referendum on secession.

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GUERRILLA WAR?

The EU, Russia's biggest economic partner and energy customer, adopted a three-stage plan to try to force a negotiated solution but stopped short of immediate sanctions.

Kerry: US will consider more sanctions over Ukrain … Play video



The Russian Foreign Ministry responded angrily on Friday, calling the EU decision to freeze talks on visa-free travel and on a broad new pact governing Russia-EU ties "extremely unconstructive". It warned that Moscow would retaliate against any sanctions.

Senior Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko, freed from prison after Yanukovich's ouster, met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dublin and appealed for immediate EU sanctions against Russia, warning that Crimea might otherwise slide into a guerrilla war.

Brussels and Washington rushed to strengthen the new authorities in economically shattered Ukraine, announcing both political and financial assistance. The regional director of the International Monetary Fund said talks with Kiev on a loan agreement were going well and praised the new government's openness to economic reform and transparency.

The European Commission has said Ukraine could receive up to 11 billion euros ($15 billion) in the next couple of years provided it reaches agreement with the IMF, which requires painful economic reforms like ending gas subsidies.

Promises of billions of dollars in Western aid for the Kiev government, and the perception that Russian troops are not likely to go beyond Crimea into other parts of Ukraine, have helped reverse a rout in the local hryvnia currency.

In the past two days it has traded above 9.0 to the dollar for the first time since the Crimea crisis began last week. Local dealers said emergency currency restrictions imposed last week were also supporting the hryvnia.

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said Ukraine had not paid its $440 million gas bill for February, bringing its arrears to $1.89 billion and hinted it could turn off the taps as it did in 2009, when a halt in Russian deliveries to Ukraine reduced supplies to Europe during a cold snap.

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Uniformed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, walk in formation near a Ukrainian military base i …

In Moscow, a huge crowd gathered near the Kremlin at a government-sanctioned rally and concert billed as being "in support of the Crimean people".

Pop stars took to the stage and demonstrators held signs with slogans such as "Crimea is Russian land", "We don't trade our people for money" and "We believe in Putin".

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said no one in the civilized world would recognize the result of the "so-called referendum" in Crimea.

He repeated Kiev's willingness to negotiate with Russia if Moscow pulls its additional troops out of Crimea and said he had requested a telephone call with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said there was no clear signal that Russia was willing to join an international "contact group" with Ukraine proposed by the West to negotiate a solution to the crisis.

Despite Putin's tough words, demonstrators who have remained encamped in Kiev's central Independence Square to defend the revolution that ousted Yanukovich said they did not believe Crimea would be allowed to secede.

"We are optimists. Crimea will stand with us and we will fight for it," said Taras Yurkiv, 35, from the eastern city of Lviv. "How we will fight depends on the decisions of our leadership. If necessary, we will go with force. If you want peace, you must prepare for war."

Alexander Zaporozhets, 40, from central Ukraine's Kirovograd region, put his faith in international pressure.

"I don't think the Russians will be allowed to take Crimea from us: you can't behave like that to an independent state. We have the support of the whole world. But I think we are losing time. While the Russians are preparing, we are just talking."

Unarmed military observers from the pan-European Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were blocked from entering Crimea for a second day in a row on Friday, the OSCE said on Twitter.

A U.N. special envoy who traveled to the regional capital Simferopol was surrounded by pro-Russian protesters and forced to leave on Wednesday. The United Nations said it had sent its assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, to Kiev to conduct a preliminary humans rights assessment.

Ukrainian television was switched off in Crimea on Thursday and replaced with Russian state channels. The streets largely belong to people who support Moscow's rule, some of whom have become increasingly aggressive in the past week, harassing journalists and occasional pro-Kiev protesters.

Part of the Crimea's 2 million population opposes Moscow's rule, including members of the region's ethnic Russian majority. The last time Crimeans were asked, in 1991, they voted narrowly for independence along with the rest of Ukraine.

"This announcement that we are already part of Russia provokes nothing but tears," said Tatyana, 41, an ethnic Russian. "With all these soldiers here, it is like we are living in a zoo. Everyone fully understands this is an occupation."

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Luke Baker and Martin Santa in Brussels, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in Washington, Lina Kushch in Donetsk and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher)

http://news.yahoo.com/crimea-votes-j...0--sector.html

China applauds as Putin rebuffs Obama on Crimea

10:47 AM 03/07/2014
Neil Munro
White House Correspondent

Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t budging from Crimea, the Chinese government is signaling support for him and President Barack Obama is taking a weekend vacation in the Florida Keys.

Obama and Putin held another 90-minute phone call Thursday night, in which Obama urged Putin to drop his support for Crimean secession from Ukraine.
“Obama indicated that there is a way to resolve the situation diplomatically, which addresses the interests of Russia, the people of Ukraine, and the international community,” said the White House statement.

Today, Obama is leaving D.C. for a 2014 campaign stop in Florida, where he will tout his opportunity agenda, and then will spend the weekend in Key Largo. He’s expected to continue his campaign events next week.

So far, the crisis has not visibly damaged Obama’s domestic clout, but his poll ratings remain in the low 40s.

The Kremlin responded to the Obama outreach with an uncompromising statement.

“Vladimir Putin noted that the current Ukrainian government, which came to power as the result of an unconstitutional coup and was not supported by a nationwide mandate, is imposing entirely illegitimate decisions onto Crimea and the eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine,” said the Russian statement.

“Russia cannot ignore calls for help on this matter and is responding accordingly, in full compliance with international law,” it added.

The Russian statement then included some boilerplate about diplomatic negotiations that included a vague suggestion of a willingness to compromise.
“The President of Russia stressed the paramount importance of Russian-US relations for ensuring stability and security… these relations should not be sacrificed due to disagreements on individual international issues, even if they are very significant.”

So far, Russian has not moved its forces into eastern Ukraine, where the population consists mostly of ethnic Russians rather than ethnic Ukrainians. The population in Crimea is mostly Russian. Western and central Ukraine are majority Ukrainian.

Putin’s strategic goal is unclear. He may be trying to bring Crimea back into Russia, or he may be using the pro-Russian population of the Ukraine and Crimea to weaken and cripple Ukraine’s government and keep the country away from Europe’s protection and under Russia’s influence.

Putin may also be trying to humiliate and weaken Obama, partly because of Russia’s self-interest in a weakened, less-assertive United States.

Putin has other strategic and cultural reasons to challenge Obama, who has tried to knock down Russia’s Syrian ally, and has repeatedly criticized Russia about rights forRussian gays and lesbians.

But during this crisis, China’s Xinhua government news agency printed a March 7 editorial backing the Russian move.

“Russian military personnel [are] deployed in eastern Ukraine to protect Russia’s legitimate interests and pro-Russian regions [are] clamoring for a secession from Kiev,” said the editorial, which blamed the crisis on secret western plots that caused the collapse last month of the corrupt, pro-Russian president.

“The West’s strategy for installing a so-called democratic and pro-Western Ukrainian government did not get anywhere at all… [and] Russian leaders once again proved their credibility and shrewdness in planning and executing effective counter moves.” said the editorial.

China has its own reasons for supporting Russia, as it wants to minimize international criticism of its control over Tibet, which it invaded and occupied in the early 1950s after a long war. It also wants to avoid future foreign involvement in any future strike against Taiwan, an ethnically Chinese island that has been de-facto independent since the Chinese Communist Party seized control on the mainland in 1949.

The Chinese government still claims ownership of the wealthy, U.S.-protected island and its 23 million people.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/07/ch...ama-on-crimea/

Originally Posted by Newmexican

China applauds as Putin rebuffs Obama on Crimea

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The Hill
March 07, 2014, 10:14 am

Putin dismisses warnings from Obama

Russian President Vladimir Putin is dismissing warnings from President Obama and the West about Moscow’s incursion into Crimea.

In a statement released after Putin and Obama spoke by telephone for an hour, Putin harshly criticized Ukraine’s new government and said the Kremlin would not ignore cries for help from ethnic Russians.

Putin accused Ukraine's interim government of undertaking “absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.”

“Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law,” Putin said.

Putin’s comments suggested Obama made little headway with the Russian leader during the call. Obama also on Thursday authorized sanctions on Russia to raise more pressure on Moscow.

Putin’s claimed that the pro-European leaders in Ukraine had executed an “anti-constitutional coup” in his statement.

Russian forces one week ago entered Crimea, a region of Eastern Ukraine that was a part of Russia until 1954.

The Kremlin's move came after more than 80 people were killed during protests in the capital city of Kiev, prompting a negotiated settlement between the pro-European opposition and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Shortly after the agreement was signed, Yanukovych fled Kiev for Russia, fearing arrest.

Western powers, including the United States, have denounced the Russian incursion as a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. According to the White House, Obama reiterated that complaint during the leaders’ phone call Thursday night.

Obama has implored Russia to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis — a request he repeated during his conversation with Putin. The proposal would include direct talks between the Ukraine and Russia governments, ensuring Russian forces return to their bases and installing international monitors to protect the rights of all Ukrainians.

“There is a way to resolve the situation diplomatically, which addresses the interests of Russia, the people of Ukraine, and the international community,” the White House said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/russia/200188-putin-dismisses-warnings-from-obama