Crimea votes to be part of Russia
U.S. slaps visa bans on some offifficials; Obama talks at length to Putin.
SIMFEROPOL, UKRAINE — The volatile confrontation over the future of Ukraine took another tense turn 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.
While diplomats raced from meeting to meeting in an effort to end the standoff, European leaders signaled they may join U.S. sanctions and Moscow threatened countermeasures as an already jittery situation was made edgier by the opening of new Russian military drills.
The pro-Russian regional Parliament in Crimea crossed another red line set by the U.S. and Europe by voting to secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia.
It scheduled a March 16 referendum to ratify that decision, hoping to win popular approval for the Russian military seizure of the region. Authorities in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, backed by the U.S. and Europe, denounced the move.
Hours after issuing his first punitive actions against spe-
cific Russians, President Barack Obama reached out to President Vladimir Putin in an hourlong telephone call emphasizing a diplomatic settlement.
Obama urged 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 officials at the White House.
“Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine,” Obama said in his only public remarks on the crisis. “In 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders.”
European Union leaders issued a statement in Brussels calling an annexation referendum “contrary to the Ukrainian Constitution and therefore illegal.”
The sanctions 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.
Moscow, however, gave no indication of backing down, suggesting that it would reciprocate with measures seizing U.S. 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.”
The EU 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 EU-Russia summit meeting and eventually to broader economic measures.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been reluctant to move quickly toward sanctions, said the EU 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.
“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 moves came as Secretary of State John Kerry met for a second day with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on ways to defuse the Ukraine crisis. A top aide said Kerry urged Lavrov to talk directly with Ukrainian leaders.
“We want to be able to have the dialogue that leads to the de-escalation,” 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.”
Here 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.
“We’re already Russian,” Natasha Malachuk said as she picketed a local security headquarters.
Another protester, Vyacheslav Tokarev, declared, “We’re citizens of Russia; we’re returning home.”
Others objected, particularly the peninsula’s large Crimean Tatar minority. “It’s completely illegitimate,” said Bilal Kuzi-Emin, 25. “Why don’t we just join Turkey?”
A Kiev court has already ruled the Crimean Parliament’s actions illegal. An arrest warrant has been issued for the new regional prime minister, Sergey Aksyonov, who was installed a week ago after armed men seized the Parliament building and raised the Russian flag.