MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree Monday night formally recognizing Ukraine’s Crimea region as a “sovereign and independent state,” laying the groundwork for possible annexation and defying the United States and Europe just hours after they imposed their first financial sanctions since the crisis began.
Putin’s decree came after the breakaway republic formally declared its independence and asked Russia to annex it in keeping with the results of a referendum held Sunday under the watch of Russian troops. The Kremlin announced that Putin would address both houses of the Russian parliament today, and many expect him to endorse annexation.
The moves showed that Moscow has no intention of backing down in the face of Western sanctions over a dispute that has created a rift in East-West relations and threatens the security of borders created after the Soviet Union’s breakup in the early 1990s.
The United States, European Union and others say that splitting off Crimea from Ukraine violates the Ukrainian Constitution and international law and has taken place under duress from the Russian military. Putin maintains that the vote was legal and consistent with the right of self-determination.
As the Kremlin announced Putin’s decree, all the factions in Russia’s lower house of the parliament submitted draft legislation that welcomed Crimea’s referendum, reversing a decision made 60 years ago by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to put Crimea under the authority of what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The resolution pledged “to contribute to the social and economic development of Crimea and the prosperity of its population, to maintain peace, calm and conciliation on this territory during the transition period.”
Earlier Monday, the United States froze assets and banned travel for 11 Russian and Ukrainian political figures, including top aides and allies of Putin as well as former President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine, whose ouster amid pro-Western street protests last month prompted the Russian military incursion into Crimea. The EU followed suit with sanctions against 21 Russians and Ukrainians, though none as prominent as those on the U.S. list.
“We’re making it clear there are consequences for these actions,” President Barack Obama said in a televised statement in the White House briefing room Monday. “The international community will continue to stand together to oppose any violations of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
He repeated that Russia can still defuse the conflict. “Going forward, we can calibrate our response based on whether Russia chooses to escalate or de-escalate the situation,” he said. “Now, I believe there is still a path to resolve this situation diplomatically.”
Obama was sending Vice President Joe Biden to eastern Europe later Monday to meet with leaders of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, NATO allies that feel especially nervous about Russian assertiveness. The president leaves for Europe next week on a previously scheduled trip that might be consumed with the Ukraine crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry also is expected in Europe in the coming days.
SANCTIONS LIST
In a conference call to brief reporters Monday, administration officials said Obama has created a new set of sanctions that, while targeting a limited number of individuals at first, has a broader scope than any aimed at Moscow in decades.
“These are by far the most comprehensive sanctions applied to Russia since the end of the Cold War - far and away so,” said one of the officials, who under the ground rules of the briefing was not permitted to be identified.
Among those penalized Monday were Vladislav Surkov, for years one of Putin’s most influential advisers; Sergei Glazyev, an economist who has been advising Putin on Ukraine; Valentina Matviyenko, chairman of the Federation Council, the upper house of the parliament; and Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister. No sanctions were placed on Putin.
Others named by the White House were Leonid Slutsky and Yelena Mizulina, members of the State Duma, the lower house of the parliament; and Andrey Klishas, a member of the Federation Council who wrote a bill to seize assets of Western individuals in retaliation for any sanctions imposed on Russia.
The White House also sanctioned two Russian-supported figures who have taken power in Crimea - Sergei Aksyonov, the newly declared prime minister, and Vladimir Konstantinov, the newly declared speaker of its parliament. In addition to Yanukovych, the Americans penalized Viktor Medvedchuk, head of a pro-Russian civil society group, Ukrainian Choice.
“We have fashioned these sanctions to impose costs on named individuals who wield influence in the Russian government and those responsible for the deteriorating situation in Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement. “We stand ready to use these authorities in a direct and targeted fashion as events warrant.”
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the sanctions. Rogozin responded with a post on his Twitter account, saying, “I think the decree of the president of the United States was written by some joker.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the sanctions were “a reflection of a pathological unwillingness to acknowledge reality and a desire to impose on everyone one-sided and unbalanced approaches that absolutely ignore reality.”
The Europeans likewise targeted Aksyonov, Konstantinov, Klishas and Slutsky but avoided going after figures in the Russian elite like Surkov, Glazyev, Matviyenko and Rogozin, because they were concerned about poking too directly at the Russian president in a way that would make it harder for him to back down later. The European list targeted 10 Russian politicians; seven pro-Russian Crimeans; three Russian military officers in Crimea; and the former head of Ukraine’s Black Sea Fleet, who defected to Russia this month.
WARNING FROM ROMANIA
In the EU, the pace of agreeing on a strategy to confront Russia’s attempt to seize Crimea has reawakened divisions in the 28-nation bloc, with former Soviet satellites urging the firmest possible response and EU heavyweights like Germany and France determined to keep channels open to the Kremlin.
Romanian President Traian Basescu said Monday that Russia has created a chain of conflicts around the Black Sea to further Putin’s goal of rebuilding the former Soviet Union along its former border with the West, adding that he worries neighboring Moldova is “in great danger.”
“If you look at the map, you will see this chain of frozen conflicts” around the Black Sea “that can be set off at any time,” he said, referring to conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.
Basescu said Putin’s priorities “seem to be connected to the point of contact between the European Union and NATO.” He said Ukraine and Moldova were “a priority for Vladimir Putin, who wants to rebuild the Soviet Union.”
“Countries that are closer to Russia, they see stronger what’s going on,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said of the EU’s response. “Countries far away need more time. It is important that there is complete consensus.”
Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, denied that Europe was taking a softer approach than theUnited States.
“I don’t believe this is anything to do with softer or harder approaches,” she said. European officials “work very closely - and are in constant touch - with our United States colleagues, but they make their own decisions and we make ours.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the sanctions decision was not made lightly. “We wanted talks and a diplomatic solution, but the clear violation of international law yesterday with the so-called referendum meant we had to take this step, and I am glad that Europe showed such unity,” she said.
EU leaders will meet Thursday and Friday to consider “additional and far-reaching consequences,” the bloc’s foreign ministers said in a statement at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
In taking his action Monday, Obama signed an executive order intended to broaden the sanctions authority he already approved. Aides said he was targeting three broad categories of people: Russian government officials, arms-sector figures and others deemed to be working on behalf of Russian senior officials.
The order means that any assets owned by the targeted Russians in the United States will be frozen and Americans will not be allowed to do business with them. A Treasury Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, also noted that reputable global financial institutions, even those based outside the U.S., tend to refuse to do any business with individuals or entities on the U.S. sanctions list.
The sanctions are the second round approved by Obama. The first round banned visas for nearly a dozen Russian and Ukrainian individuals but did not include financial measures.
Obama held off on a more expansive target list Monday to leave room for future action if necessary.
“We have the ability to escalate our actions in response to Russian actions,” a senior administration official said.
MCCAIN CHIDES OBAMA
Administration critics said Obama’s actions were too little to sway Putin.
“I think Vladimir Putin must be encouraged by the absolute timidity,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who had just returned from a weekend trip to Kiev.
“I don’t know how it could have been weaker, besides doing nothing - seven [Russians] being sanctioned after naked aggression has taken place,” he told MSNBC.
U.S. officials expect Moscow to retaliate.
Although the United States is not a large trading partner with Russia, a number of large U.S. corporations are deeply involved in the Russian market, including Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Ford and PepsiCo. Those businesses have been nervous about an escalation that would affect their representatives or operations in Russia.
U.S. officials said they were braced for retribution but expressed confidence that they could do more harm to Russia than the other way around. “Russia stands a lot more to lose from political and economic isolation than the United States,” said the senior administration official. “The world is with us.”
The sanctions came a day after a Moscow-supported referendum in Crimea in which local authorities claimed a 97 percent votein favor of breaking off from Ukraine and rejoining Russia. The new Crimean government Monday declared itself independent as it seeks to join Russia, which sent troops into the Ukrainian province after Yanukovych’s ouster.
In the Crimean capital of Simferopol, ethnic Russians applauded Sunday’s referendum. Masked men in body armor blocked access for most journalists to the parliament session that declared independence, but the city otherwise appeared to go about its business normally.
“We came back home to Mother Russia. We came back home. Russia is our home,” said Nikolay Drozdenko, a resident of Sevastopol, the key Crimean port where Russia leases a naval base from Ukraine.
Obama told Putin in a telephone call Sunday that the referendum “violates the Ukrainian Constitution and occurred under duress of Russian military intervention” and “would never be recognized by the United States and the international community.”
In Kiev, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov vowed that Ukraine will not give up Crimea.
“We are ready for negotiations, but we will never resign ourselves to the annexation of our land,” Turchynov said in a televised address to the nation. “We will do everything in order to avoid war and the loss of human lives. We will be doing everything to solve the conflict through diplomatic means. But the military threat to our state is real.”
The Crimean parliament declared that all Ukrainian state property on the peninsula will be nationalized andbecome the property of the Crimean Republic. It gave no further details. Lawmakers also asked the United Nations and other nations to recognize it and began work to set up a central bank with $30 million in support from Russia.
Moscow, meanwhile, called on Ukraine to become a federal state to resolve the polarization between Ukraine’s western regions - which favor closer ties with the EU - and its eastern areas, which have long ties to Russia.
In a statement Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry urged Ukraine’s parliament to call a constitutional assembly that could draft a new constitution to make the country federal, handing more power to its regions. It also said the country should adopt a “neutral political and military status,” a demand reflecting Moscow’s concern that Ukraine might join NATO and establish closer political and economic ties with the EU.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Lee Myers, Peter Baker, Andrew Higgins and David M. Herszenhorn of The New York Times; by James G. Neuger, Stepan Kravchenko, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Scott Rose, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Roger Runningen, Margaret Talev, Svenja O’Donnell, Patrick Henry, Caroline Connan, Ian Wishart, Jonathan Stearns and Helena Bedwell of Bloomberg News; and by Alison Mutler, Lynn Berry, Nedra Pickler, Nancy Benac, Jim Heintz, Maria Danilova, John-Thor Dahlburg, Pan Pylas, Mike Corder and Raf Casert of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/18/2014