Obama Says U.S. Ready to Move on Russia Sanctions
President Barack Obama said the
U.S. and its allies have additional sanctions against Russia
ready to go as the crisis in Ukraine escalated with Ukrainian
security forces moving against pro-Russian separatists.
Russia has yet to act in the spirit or the letter of an
agreement reached in Geneva last week to defuse the
confrontation, and if there’s no progress in the coming days,
“we will follow through,” Obama said.
“We have been preparing for the prospect that we’re going
to have to engage in further sanctions,” Obama said today at a
news conference in Tokyo after a meeting with Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe. All that’s required is some “technical
work” and coordination with allies, he said.
Obama spoke as Ukraine restarted an offensive against
separatists in eastern cities. Russia issued a warning that it
would protect its citizens in Ukrainian territory, raising the
prospect of a military move by the government in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that
an attack on a Russian citizen “is an attack against the
Russian Federation.”
“If we are attacked, we would certainly respond,” Lavrov
said in an interview with the state-run broadcaster RT.
The U.S. has begun deploying hundreds of troops for
exercises in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border
Russia, days after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
boosted the defense of member states in eastern Europe.
No Military
Obama again stressed that “there’s not going to be a
military solution” to the confrontation and held out the chance
that diplomacy will work.
“There’s always the possibility that Russia tomorrow or
the next day takes a different course,” he said.
The U.S. joined the European Union in imposing sanctions as
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine last month. “Already you’ve
seen a whole lot of money and investors leave Russia,” Obama
said, citing the effect on the Russian economy.
Russian and Ukrainian assets suffered yesterday. Russia
failed to sell local-currency bonds due August 2023 at an
auction and the Micex Index (INDEXCF) lost 0.5 percent, extending its
slide since March 1 to more than 9 percent. Ukrainian bonds
tumbled, lifting yields on the government’s dollar-denominated
notes due 2023 by 0.08 percentage point to 10.05 percent, the
highest in a month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
IMF Bailout
Ukraine’s shrinking economy may get a boost from an
International Monetary Fund loan. The Washington-based lender’s
staff endorsed a $17 billion bailout that may get board approval
next week, according to government officials who’ve seen the
recommendations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
An accord to disarm rebels signed last week in Geneva by
Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the U.S. is at risk of
collapse, as Ukrainian and Russian officials accuse each other
of violating the agreement.
Operations to clear militants from Kramatorsk, Slovyansk
and other cities were under way yesterday, Ukraine’s First
Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Yarema said.
The town of Sviatogirsk was freed yesterday without
casualties as part of the government’s “anti-terrorist”
operation, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on its
website. Ukraine’s SBU State Security Service pledged to use
“all means” to restore order in the east.
Lavrov Accusation
As many as 1,300 separatists are involved in holding
government buildings in the Donetsk region, according to the
SBU. Twenty-one Russian agents, including three intelligence
officers, have been arrested or detained, SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said during an online discussion sponsored by the
Washington-based Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s effort to uproot pro-Russian separatists from
eastern cities was put on hold over the Easter holiday. With the
Geneva deal crumbling, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov urged security forces on April 22 to move against the
militants after the discovery of two bodies near Slovyansk,
saying “terrorists” backed by Russia had “crossed the line.”
The government in Kyiv accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of instigating turmoil to possibly lay the groundwork for
an invasion. The separatists who took over buildings in eastern
Ukrainian cities say they’re not subject to the Geneva accord.
Ukraine hasn’t fulfilled a single clause of the April 17
pact, Lavrov told RT, accusing the U.S of “running the show.”
40,000 Troops
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Ukraine and the U.S. have a
distorted interpretation of the Geneva accord and are ignoring
provocations by right-wing extremists. The government in Kyiv
should pull its military back from Ukraine’s southeast, the
ministry said.
Lavrov called Turchynov’s order for the operation in
Ukraine’s eastern region “criminal.”
Putin has parliamentary approval to deploy troops in
Ukraine to protect Russian speakers and those of Russian
heritage. He has about 40,000 troops massed on the border with
Ukraine, according to NATO.
There are signs Ukraine is implementing the Geneva pact,
according to Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign-policy chief
Catherine Ashton. The bloc is calling on Russia “to use its
leverage to ensure an immediate end to what is going on in
eastern Ukraine,” he told reporters in Brussels yesterday.
A week after NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
said the alliance will upgrade contingency plans, hold more
military drills in eastern Europe and step up air and naval
policing on its flanks, the U.S. began sending airborne infantry
to four member nations bordering Russia.
A contingent of 150 troops from the U.S. Army’s 173rd
Airborne Brigade Combat Team arrived in Poland yesterday for a
month of training, according to Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon
spokesman. Similar-sized units will be sent to Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia by next week, Warren said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Margaret Talev in Tokyo at
mtalev@bloomberg.net;
Phil Mattingly in Tokyo at
pmattingly@bloomberg.net;
Daryna Krasnolutska in Kyiv at
dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Steven Komarow at
skomarow1@bloomberg.net;
Balazs Penz at
bpenz@bloomberg.net
Joe Sobczyk, Michael Shepard