18 March 2014 - Crimea : Obama warns Russia
Obama warns Russia of more sanctions if it doesn't back down in Crimea
Kathleen Hennessey and Christi Parsons (The Los Angeles Times)
WASHINGTON -- President Obama warned Monday that the penalties on Russia could be expanded if President Vladimir Putin's government does not back down from its military takeover of Crimea as the White House announced travel and financial sanctions on 11 senior Russian and Ukrainian officials.
"Further provocations will do nothing except to further isolate Russia and diminish its place in the world," Obama said in a statement at the White House. "We can calibrate our response on whether Russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the situation."
Administration officials said the sanctions, which the European Union also imposed, were “far and away” the stiffest penalties imposed on Russia since the end of the Cold War.
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Cold War
Roland Oliphant, in Simferopol, Bruno Waterfield (The Telegraph)
Vladimir Putin has delivered a swift and uncompromising blow to the imposition of US and EU sanctions by signing a decree recognising Crimea as an independent state, paving the way for him to acknowledge a request from the breakaway region to join the Russian Federation.
Ignoring Western threats of a new Cold War and a “far-reaching” economic blockade, the Russian president will on Tuesday address both houses of the Russian parliament on the crisis, and is expected to welcome Crimea into the fold. The formal process of absorbing the peninsula could be completed within weeks.
The Kremlin announced that Mr Putin had signed a decree recognising Crimea as an independent state, after it voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
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Some context
Karen DeYoung, Griff Witte and Kathy Lally (The Washington Post)
Russian President Vladimir Putin formally recognized Crimea as an independent state Monday, defying new U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Russian and Ukrainian officials, including some of his top aides, in response to Moscow’s moves to take over the region.
A statement posted Monday evening on the Kremlin Web site said Putin signed an order recognizing Crimea’s independence, effective immediately. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly Sunday to secede from Ukraine, a first step toward what pro-Russian leaders in the autonomous region hope will become accession to the Russian Federation.
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Going yellow?
Ewen MacAskill, Shaun Walker and Dan Roberts (The Guardian)
The US and the European Union retaliated over the Crimea referendum by targeting sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials on Monday, a move widely greeted with scepticism as "toothless".
The White House imposed sanctions against 11 named individuals: seven senior Russian politicians and officials and four Crimea-based separatist leaders accused of undermining the "democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine".
But the US pointedly avoided targeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, or key figures in his inner circle.
The EU imposed sanctions on 21 individuals but did not immediately disclose the names. There are divisions within Europe over how to respond to Russia, and this is reflected in the fact that action is being taken against less than two dozen from an original proposed list of 120.
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18 March 2014 - Crimea : Obama warns Russia, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), mars 2014. Consulté le 26/12/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/18-march-2014-crimea-obama-warns-russia