Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Ukraine Updates March 4 , 2014 -- Was yesterday constant flashes of "scary " headlines just a bad nightmare ? Putin speaks , tells Russian tropps to go back to their barracks in the Crimea , global equity markets rejoice , US bonds , gold and oil gets slammed ....... But are we really back to " Happy Days " ? A fair read of the whole of Putin's speech indicates that while Putin has restated his view of the Ukraine situation and seemingly softened his hard talk from the weekend , he has not softened the Russian view toward the Crimea at all. And on the 2 billion Ukraine owes Russia for natural gas ( as of the end of February , it's still due and Ukraine is still subject to the cancellation of its discount ! Moreover , the speech is also geared toward heading off not just the reluctant EU on the subject of sanctions , but also head off or truly isolate the US if unilateral sanctions are imposed .
Ukraine Government statements of the day.......
Ukraine Defense Ministry Says Repelled Armed Attempt To Capture Warship
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 15:23 -0500
Truth, propaganda, or outright lies? Nobody knows anymore, but if an ICBM launch, which apparently the US had been aware of yet which came at the worst possible time even though Putin could have easily delayed, can barely dent the stock surge, who cares anymore.
Ukraine’s Navy Slavutych crew prevented the capture attempt by armed persons.
“Armed persons in a boat came to the ship but the crew repelled their attack. There was even the attempt to board the ship, capture her, arms, and sailors,”informed Capt. 2nd Rank Vitaliy Zvyahintsev, Commander of Surface Ships Brigade, Ukraine’s Navy.
Now, the ships of the Russian Federation Black Sea Fleet continue blocking the Ukrainian Navy ships in Crimea.
All the military units and ships of the Ukrainian Armed forces deployed in Crimea follow the orders of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
This one should be intuitive: with Ukraine scrambling to load up on natgas ahead of the price surge once Gazprom ends its discount pricing, and unclear what if any access it will have to Russian gas in the future and at what cost, it was only a matter of time before the Ukraine stepped up the protection of its only true energy asset: its 15 nuclear power plant, which supply nearly half of the country's energy needs. Ukraine told as much to the U.N. atomic watchdog on Tuesday, although it framed it as a result of the "grave threat to the security" of the country posed by the Russian military.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear power reactors in operation, accounting for nearly 44 percent of its electricity production in 2013, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) website. Ukraine's envoy to the IAEA said in a letter to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano: "Illegal actions of the Russian armed forces on Ukrainian territory and the threat of use of force amount to a grave threat to security of Ukraine with its potential consequences for its nuclear power infrastructure."
Ambassador Ihor Prokopchuk's letter, dated March 4, was circulated among delegations attending a week-long meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation governing board in Vienna. It was given to Reuters by a diplomat from another country.
Prokopchuk's letter to Amano, apparently written before Putin's comments, said: "Under these circumstances, the competent authorities of Ukraine make every effort to ensure physical security, including reinforced physical protection of 15 power units in operation at four sites of Ukrainian NPPs (nuclear power plants).
"However, consequences of the use of military force by the Russian federation against Ukraine will be unpredictable."
On Sunday, Ukraine's parliament called for international monitors to help protect its nuclear power plants, as tension mounted with its neighbor.Prokopchuk urged Amano to "join international efforts in de-escalating the crisis around Ukraine and to urgently raise the issue of nuclear security" with Russia.
Amano said on Monday there were 31 nuclear-related facilities in Ukraine that were being monitored by the IAEA to make sure there was no diversion of material for military purposes, as it does in other countries with nuclear plants.
Whether or not the protection surge is a result of Russian fears is irrelevant: one thing that is certain is that it is quite welcome, when one recalls that it was in the Ukraine where 28 years ago Chernobyl exploded in what was unti then the worst nuclear disaster in history.
In fact, perhaps instead of Crimea, Putin should have gone for one of the Japanese isles several years ago. Maybe only then could the great Fukushima disaster, which continues billowing alpha, beta and gamma rays to this day having surpassed Chernobyl in the worst radioactive catastrophes of all time record, would have been avoided.
And......
Russia statements / actions during the day......
Stock Rally Stalls As Russia Test-Fires Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 13:52 -0500
Because BTFWWIII is so yesterday, we present BTFICBMD:
*RUSSIA TEST FIRES INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE: INTERFAX
*RUSSIA TEST FIRED MISSILE FROM RANGE IN ASTRAKHAN REGION: IFX
*RUSSIA MISSILE LAUNCHED AT 10:10PM IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA: INTERFAX
*INTERFAX CITES RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY ON MISSILE TEST
But, the talking heads said Ukraine was fixed and Putin had folded?
Via Bloomberg:
Topol missile launched from firing range in Astrakhan region at 10:10pm Moscow time, news service reports, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Launch carried out by Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces
Missile hit target in Kazakhstan: IFX
And Reuters:
Russia said it had successfully test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) on Tuesday, with tensions high over its seizure of control in the Crimea and its threat to send more forces to its neighbour Ukraine.
The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan, the state-run news agency RIA cited Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov as saying.
The Topol Missile:
And the reaction...USDJPY blips and the S&P 500 drops 5 points
Moscow (AFP) - Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on the United States if Washington agreed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said on Tuesday, warning that the American financial system faced a "crash" if this happened.
"We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves," said Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev.
He told the RIA Novosti news agency Russia could stop using dollars for international transactions and create its own payment system using its "wonderful trade and economic relations with our partners in the East and South."
Russian firms and banks would also not return loans from American financial institutions, he said.
"An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system," he added.
He said that economic sanctions imposed by the European Union would be a "catastrophe" for Europe, saying that Russia could halt gas supplies "which would be beneficial for the Americans" and give the Russian economy a useful "impulse".
Pedestrians walk under under a board listing foreign currency rates against the Russian ruble just o …
Glazyev has long been seen as among the most hawkish of the advisors to President Vladimir Putin but many observers have seen his hand in the apparent radicalisation of policy on Ukraine since the overthrow of president Viktor Yanukovych.
Economists have long mocked his apocalyptic and confrontational vision of global economics but also expressed concern that he appears to have grown in authority in recent months.
A high ranking Kremlin source told RIA Novosti that Glazyev was speaking in the capacity of an "academic" and his personal opinion did not reflect the official Kremlin policy.
Glazyev descrived the new Ukrainian authorities as "illegitimate and Russophobic", saying some members of the government were on lists of "terrorist organisations, they are criminals".
"If the authorities remain criminal then I think the people of Ukraine will get rid of them soon," he added.
and.....
Russia Warns "Will Have To Respond" For US Sanctions
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 13:14 -0500
"we will have to respond...if provoked by rash and irresponsible actions by Washington... and not necessarily symmetrically."
Via Reuters,
Russia said on Tuesday that it would retaliate if the United States imposed sanctions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine.
"We will have to respond,"Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement. "As always in such situations, provoked by rash and irresponsible actions by Washington, we stress: This is not our choice."
And Interfax adds:
RUSSIA WILL HAVE TO RESPOND TO POSSIBLE U.S. SANCTIONS, "AND NOT NECESSARILY SYMMETRICALLY" - RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY
Given that Russian boots remain on the ground in Ukraine and that the US (and the west - ex-UK) are still pressing for crushing sanctions against Russia; one has to wonder whether Putin's carefully worded "annexation" comment did nothing but enable exits for oligarchs... What really changed?
Ukrainian, Russian Warships Cross Bosphorus, Enter Black Sea
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 10:47 -0500
The Bosphorus has been a busy place today where first two Russian ships, the Alligator Class landing ship 150 Saratov and the Ropucha class landing ship 156 Yamal have passed the Turkish strait in a northerly, Black Sea, direction, followed promptly by the Ukrainian frigate U130 Hetman Sahaydachniy. Full steam ahead to a Sevastopol rendezvous? Find out in a few hours.
( 1 billion loan guarantee is to offset loss of energy subsidy from Gazprom - looks like Russia gets paid some of Ukraine's 2 billion in natural gas arrears owed to Gazprom by the US ! Once the EU kicks in another billion , the tab through February will be squared. )
Kerry Lands In Kiev, Sanctions Against Russia "In Matter Of Days", US Prepares $1 Billion Loan For Ukraine
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 08:10 -0500
While the world digests the recent Putin press conference in which he appeared to superficially soften his stance on the Ukraine, US SecState John Kerry lands in Kiev while the state department announced that sanctions against Russia are "coming in a matter of days", and as the US announces it is preparing a $1 billion aid package for the Ukraine, which despite the toned down rhetoric by Putin just lost the Gazprom discount for natgas due to non-payment meaning its reserves will be depleted even faster, suggesting a far greater urgency to providing funding for the Ukraine in what some have said is now a fight between Putin and the IMF, as the latter tries to drain what little funds remain in the nation, while the former urgently seeks to keep it afloat.
Ukraine set to receive €1 billion in aid from European Commission
The European Union will help Ukraine pay the $2 billion it owes to Russian gas giant Gazprom, a top official has said, as part of an aid package reportedly worth more than €1 billion.
EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said that "payment of the outstanding Ukraine bills is high up in the Commission's aid package," expected to be adopted tomorrow.
Ukraine's state gas firm Naftogaz "owes about two billion dollars to Gazprom and we are going to help it pay this bill," he said, adding the EU could even supply the country with gas.
EU officials are due to nail down the details of the Ukraine aid package tomorrow, ahead of an emergency EU leaders' summit the following day.
Brussels has offered Ukraine €610 million ($840 million) in aid so far and reports suggest the 28-member bloc could free up an additional €500 million as the West faces off with Russia in a Cold War-style confrontation.
However, the package in the pipeline is a far cry from the €25 billion over two years which the newly installed Ukrainian government says it needs.
It is expecting the IMF to provide €15 billion this year.
Earlier, the United States pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine.
"We are mutually dependent: the European Union needs Russian gas and Russia's economy needs the money from its gas," Oettinger stressed.
The EU may even find itself providing gas to Ukraine, given the two are connected by a gas pipeline which allows the flow to be reversed - a legacy of the 2009 gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia.
"Slovakia could reverse the flow towards Ukraine," Oettinger said.
Yesterday, the Commission sent a delegation of experts to Kiev to assess the troubled country's financial needs.
On Sunday, finance ministers of the G7 grouping of leading world economies said they were determined to support Ukraine's battered economy, providing the country agreed to the economic reforms sought by the IMF.
EU agrees to freeze 18 Ukrainians' accounts
European Union governments have reached a preliminary agreement to freeze the assets of 18 Ukrainians, at Kiev's request, after Ukraine's new rulers said billions in public funds have gone missing.
The decision still needs to be made final in the coming days and follows similar moves last week by Austria, an EU member, as well as Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Austrian authorities have included Ukraine's ousted president, Viktor Yanukovich, in their list of targets but it was not clear whether his assets would now be frozen throughout the 28-nation bloc.
Happy Days !
Futures Soar, Near Record As Putin Speaks, Softens Russian Stance On Ukraine
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 06:51 -0500
Futures are soaring and are just shy of their record high following a just completed press conference by Vladimir Putin in his residence outside of Moscow, in which the Russian leader appears to have softened his stance on Crimean aggression, saying he does not consider adding Crimea to its territory. What the market is focusing on is the repeat of Putin's stance that he will not be sending troops to the Crimea yet (even though they are there already), and that he suddenly appears concerned about the impact on markets and the fallout from sanctions.
The key highlights from the speech from Blooomberg.
PUTIN SAYS WE DON’T PLAN TO FIGHT UKRAINIAN PEOPLE
PUTIN SAYS DOESN’T WANT TO RECALL AMBASSADOR FROM U.S.
PUTIN ORDERED RUSSIAN GOVT TO RENEW CONTACTS WITH UKRAINE GOVT
PUTIN SAYS WEST ASKED RUSSIA NOT TO BUY MORE UKRAINE BONDS
PUTIN SAYS NO IDEA WHO UKRAINE WILL ELECT AS PRESIDENT
PUTIN SAYS AGREES W/ UKRAINE PROTESTERS' DEMAND FOR NEW LEADERS
PUTIN SAYS MET YANUKOVYCH 2 DAYS AGO, SAYS HE'S ALIVE
On the oh so sensitive topic of Russian gas:
PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE MAY OWE $2B FOR GAS AT END FEB.
PUTIN SAYS GAZPROM CANCELLING UKRAINE GAS DISCOUNT OVER DEBT
Then
RUSSIA'S LAVROV SAYS HOPES "OUR PARTNERS" WILL NOT IMPOSE SANCTIONS OVER UKRAINE AND WILL UNDERSTAND RUSSIAN POSITION
RUSSIA'S LAVROV SAYS OUR MOVE IN CRIMEA WAS CORRECT, FORCES SEIZED ARMS AND EXPLOSIVES
So is this Putin offering an olive branch to the West and de-escalating Crimea, or just more smoke and mirrors for the media to consume even as Putin fully entrenches in the territory? Expect to find out shortly.
President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia saw no need to use military force in the Crimea region of Ukraine for now, in remarks apparently intended to ease East-West tension over fears of war in the former Soviet republic.
The use of force by Russia in Ukraine would be a choice of last resort, Putin said, and sanctions being considered against Moscow by the West would be counter-productive.
Putin told a news conference at his state residence outside Moscow there had been an "unconstitutional coup" in Ukraine and ousted leader Viktor Yanukovich, an ally of Russia, was still the legitimate leader of the country despite giving up all power.
Earlier on Tuesday, Putin ordered troops involved in a military exercise in western Russia, close to the border with Ukraine, back to their bases.
Russian financial markets rebounded after sharp falls on Monday, and the euro and dollar rose in Japan, though Moscow's forces remained in control of Ukraine's Crimea region, seized bloodlessly after Yanukovich was ousted last month.
Russia paid a heavy financial price on Monday for its military intervention in Ukraine, with stocks, bonds and the rouble plunging as Putin's forces tightened their grip in Crimea, whose population is mainly ethnic Russian.
The Moscow stock market fell more than 10 percent on Monday, wiping nearly $60 billion off the value of Russian firms, but Russian stock indexes rose more than 4 percent early on Tuesday before slipping back again slightly, though still up on the day.
Putin said the turmoil in Russian markets was a "tactical, temporary" decision by investors.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will propose ways for a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine to be overseen by a multilateral organisation when he visits Kiev on Tuesday.
NATO allies will hold emergency talks on the crisis on Tuesday, for the second time in three days.
GAZPROM PRICES
In further pressure on Kiev, Russia's top gas producer Gazprom said it would remove a discount on gas prices for Ukraine from April, Interfax news agency cited the company's chief as saying on Tuesday.
However, Gazprom chief Alexei Miller also said the company could offer Ukraine a loan of $2-3 billion to pay off the country's debt of more than $1.5 billion after Ukraine said it was unable to pay in full for gas deliveries in February, Interfax news agency said.
Putin said at the weekend that he had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian interests and citizens after Yanukovich's downfall following months of popular unrest. Russia's Black Sea Fleet has a base in Crimea.
But the military exercises in central and western Russia, which began last week and raised fears that Russia might send forces to Russian-speaking regions of east Ukraine, were completed on schedule.
"The supreme commander of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, gave the order for the troops and units, taking part in the military exercises, to return to their bases," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
Although the end of the exercises had been planned, the announcement sent a more conciliatory message than much of the rhetoric from Russian officials, who say Moscow must defend national interests and those of compatriots in Ukraine.
Putin is dismayed that the new leadership in Ukraine, the cradle of Russian civilisation, has plotted a course towards the European Union and away from what had been Moscow's sphere of influence during generations of Soviet Communist rule.
Moscow's U.N. envoy told a stormy meeting of the Security Council that Yanukovich had sent a letter to Putin requesting he use Russia's military to restore law and order in Ukraine.
Ukraine said observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a pan-European security body, would travel at its invitation to Crimea in an attempt to defuse the military standoff there.
RTS INDEXRTSI:RTF
1,181.93
66.87 / 6.00%
0
21.14 %
LATEST PRICE IN USD
TODAY'S CHANGE
SHARES TRADED
1 YEAR CHANGE
As of Mar 04 2014 11:51 GMT.Data delayed by at least 15 minutes.
We had previously warned that Putin's "trump card" had yet to be played and with Obama (and a quickly dropping list of allies) preparing economic sanctions (given their limited escalation options otherwise), it was only a matter of time before the pressure was once again applied from the Russian side. As ITAR-TASS reports, Russia's Gazprom warned that not only could it cancel its "supply discount" as Ukraine's overdue payments reached $1.5 billion but that "simmering political tensions in Ukraine, that are aggravated by inadequate economic conditions, may cause disruptions of gas supplies to Europe." And with that one sentence, Europe will awaken to grave concerns over Russia's next steps should sanctions be applied.
It would appear this is the most important map in Europe once again...
Some recent history...
In late January, Ukraine asked Russia for deferral of payments for gas supplied in 2013 and in early 2014. President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s debt totalled $2.7 billion then.
and then...
On March 1, Gazprom’s spokesperson Sergai Kupriyanov said the gas holding could cancel its gas supply discount for Ukraine as its overdue debt for gas reached $1.5 billion. This figure includes debts not only for last year’s supplies, but also for the current deliveries.
"The situation with payments is worrying," said Andrei Kruglov, Gazprom's chief financial officer.
"Ukraine is paying but not as well as we would like it to. We are still thinking about whether to extend the pricing contract into the next quarter based on current prices."
And now today...
Russia’s gas giant Gazprom said on Monday it did not rule out possible disruptions of gas supplies to Europe over Ukraine’s political situation.
“Simmering political tensions in Ukraine, that are aggravated by inadequate economic conditions, may cause disruptions of gas supplies to Europe,” the monopoly said in its materials, adding that it would do its utmost to reduce export risks.
“We will further invest into other export-oriented projects such as South Stream and will enhance our LNG (liquefied natural gas) production and export capacity. We also increase our access to underground gas storage facilities in Europe.”
Andrei Kruglov, Gazprom’s chief financial officer, said at the moment Russia had been supplying gas to Ukraine according to schedule, although the latter failed to fulfil its debt obligations.
With that last sentence providing exactly the 'real world' cover Gazprom needs to cut its supplies "through" Ukraine and thus to Europe...
not the first time Russia has used gas exports to put pressure on its neighbour – and "gas wars" between the two countries tend to be felt far beyond their borders.Russia, after all, still supplies around 30% of Europe's gas.
In late 2005, Gazprom said it planned to hike the price it charged Ukraine for natural gas from $50 per 1,000 cubic metres, to $230. The company, so important to Russia that it used to be a ministry and was once headed by the former president (and current prime minister) Dmitry Medvedev,said it simply wanted a fair market price; the move had nothing to do with Ukraine's increasingly strong ties with the European Union and Nato. Kiev, unsurprisingly, said it would not pay, and on 1 January 2006 – the two countries having spectacularly failed to reach an agreement – Gazprom turned off the taps.
The impact was immediate – and not just in Ukraine. The country is crossed by a network of Soviet-era pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to many European Union member states and beyond; more than a quarter of the EU's total gas needs were met by Russian gas, and some 80% of it came via Ukrainian pipelines. Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland soon reported gas pressure in their own pipelines was down by as much as 30%.
Short of an actual war, the consensus appeared to be, Europe's gas supplies are unlikely to be seriously threatened(since Putin relies on those revenues)...that is clearly about to change with Gazprom's comments.
As the following image from Agence France Presse (created at the end of last year) indicates, things are about to get a lot more problemati for Germany, France, and Italy...
Russia still consolidating power in Crimea.....
Crimean Authorities to Cut Power, Water to Ukrainian Troops: Russian Ex-Lawmaker.
Source: nyt/reuters Pro-Russian authorities in Crimea will cut off water and electricity to Ukrainian soldiers in bases surrounded by Russian forces on Monday night, a Russian former lawmaker loyal to President Vladimir Putin said. Sergei Markov, who held meetings with pro-Russian authorities on the Ukrainian peninsula earlier on Monday, told reporters the soldiers would also be told they would not receive their next pay packet if they did not publicly renounce their loyalty to the new provisional government in Kiev, the capital. "If they stay here and remain loyal to Kiev and the Ukrainian government, it will become more uncomfortable for them," said Markov, who sits in a Kremlin-backed public policy chamber. "The pressure is going to increase tonight." Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/03/03/world/europe/03reuters-ukraine-crisis-crimea-power.html?hp and....
Putin orders Russian troops on Ukraine border exercises back to bases
March 3, 20148:07AM ETUpdated 12:44PM ET
But pro-Russian troops at an air base in Crimea fire warning shots at Ukrainian soldiers hours before Kerry due in Kiev
Russian naval infantry troops guarding the Orsk Russian landing ship anchored in Sevastopol, Ukraine, March 2, 2014. Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops participating in military exercises near Ukraine's border to return to their bases at the same time as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was on his way to Kiev.
Tensions remained high in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea with troops loyal to Moscow firing warning shots at protesting Ukrainian soldiers a day after Russia cranked up the pressure for Ukraine’s government to return to a Feb. 21 agreement to create a new unity government and hold early elections.
It was not clear if Putin's move was an attempt to heed the West's call to de-escalate the crisis that has put Ukraine's future on the line.
It came as Kerry was on his way to Kiev to meet with the new Ukrainian leadership that deposed a pro-Russian president, and has accused Moscow of a military invasion. The Kremlin, which does not recognize the new Ukrainian leadership, insists it made the move in order to protest millions of Russians living there.
On Tuesday, pro-Russian troops who had taken control of the Belbek air base in the Crimea region fired warning shots into the air as around 300 Ukrainian soldiers, who previously manned the airfield, demanded their jobs back.
About a dozen Russian soldiers at the base warned the Ukrainians, who were marching unarmed, not to approach. They fired several warning shots into the air and said they would shoot the Ukrainians if they continued to march toward them.
There was no fighting elsewhere in Crimea early on Tuesday. A supposed Russian ultimatum for two Ukrainian warships to surrender or be seized passed without action from either side, as the two ships remained anchored in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Vladimir Anikin said late Monday that no ultimatum had been issued.
Earlier on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine should return to an agreement signed last month by pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovich to hold early elections and surrender some powers. Yanukovich fled Ukraine last week after sealing the pact with the opposition.
"Instead of a promised national unity government," said Lavrov during a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva, "a government of the victors has been created."
Russian troops cemented their hold on Ukraine’s strategic Crimean Peninsula after a tense weekend, controlling all Ukrainian border posts there as well as all military facilities and a key ferry terminal.
Tensions rose Monday when the Interfax report had said Moscow demanded that the crew of two Ukrainian warships immediately surrender or have their craft stormed and seized. The report cited Maksim Prauta, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman.
The ultimatum, the agency said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander.
However, the agency also quoted an official at Russia's Black Sea Fleet headquarters as denying that the ultimatum had been issued and said the report was "complete nonsense." The fleet has a base in Crimea under an agreement with Ukraine.
Amid heightened tensions, the United States said it was considering a "broad range of options" for sanctions it could impose on Russia in the event that Moscow refuses to defuse tensions in Ukraine.
Warning of a "dangerous escalation," the Obama administration said Washington would hold Moscow directly accountable for any threat to Ukraine's navy. Russia is "on the wrong side of history" in Ukraine, President Barack Obama said, adding that continued military action would be "a costly proposition for Russia."
Plea for international help
Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Monday stepped up pleas to the West for political and economic help and said that Crimea remains part of his country. But he conceded that for Ukraine, military options are off the table for now.
"Any attempt of Russia to grab Crimea will have no success at all. Give us some time,” Yatsenyuk said at a news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is visiting Kiev.
“For today, no military options (are) on the table,” Yatsenyuk added, saying what his country urgently needs is economic and political support.
Pro-Russia soldiers seized the ferry terminal in the Ukrainian city of Kerch, about 12 miles by sea from Russia, intensifying fears that Moscow will send even more troops into the peninsula. The move comes as the U.S. and European governments are trying to figure out ways to halt and reverse the Russian incursion.
The soldiers at the terminal refused to identify themselves Monday, but they spoke Russian, and the vehicles transporting them had Russian license plates.
The moves escalated fears in the Ukrainian capital and beyond that Russia might seek to expand its control by seizing other parts of eastern Ukraine, the country's industrial powerhouse and agricultural breadbasket. Faced with fears of more Russian aggression, Ukraine's new government has moved to consolidate its authority, naming new regional governors in the pro-Russia east picked among the country's wealthy businessmen.
The Crimean Peninsula was part of Russian territory until 1954. Russia's Black Sea Fleet pays Ukraine millions annually to be stationed at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, and nearly 60 percent of Crimea's residents identify themselves as Russian.
Senior officials in Barack Obama's administration said the United States believes Russia has complete operational control of Crimea and more than 6,000 troops in the region. Kerry is expected to visit Kiev on Tuesday to answer Yatsenyuk's request for support.
Washington has called a meeting Wednesday of the United Kingdom and the Russian and Ukrainian governments, signatories of the 1994 Budapest agreement that aimed to preserve Ukraine's self-determination. Moscow has offered no sign its representatives will attend.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland will attend a high-level meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an intergovernmental body that aims to address geopolitical conflict.
"We will be looking at what we can do immediately to get monitors into eastern Ukraine, where we could have flash points to get monitors to the (existing) flash point now on the Crimean Peninsula between the area where the Russians are occupying and the rest of Ukraine," a senior State Department official said in a news release.
Nuland will aim to “propose and scope a much broader OSCE mission that could go in to replace Russian military forces if the Russians can be persuaded to pull back,” the news release said.
Despite the latest incursions, Russian State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin said on Russia 1 television channel late Sunday, “No one in Russia wants war with Ukraine.”
“We shall support all forces that advocate strengthening bilateral relations,” Karasin said. Still, foreign minister Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s position that Russian troops in Crimea are providing necessary protection for Russians living there.
“This is a question of defending our citizens and compatriots, ensuring human rights, especially the right to life,” Lavrov said in Geneva.
At his conference with Yatsenyuk, Hague said, “The world cannot just allow this to happen.” But he ruled out military action.
“The U.K. is not discussing military options. Our concentration is on diplomatic and economic pressure.”
Tension between Ukraine and Moscow escalated rapidly after pro-Russian Yanukovich was pushed out by a protest movement led by people who wanted closer ties with the European Union. Yanukovich fled to Russia after more than 80 demonstrators were killed near Kiev's central square. He says he is still president. Since then, troops that Ukraine says are Russian soldiers have moved into Crimea, patrolling airports, smashing equipment at an airbase and besieging Ukrainian military installations.
Outrage over Russia's military moves has mounted in world capitals, with Kerry calling on Vladimir Putin to pull back from "an incredible act of aggression."
Hague said it was urgent to get Russia and Ukraine "in direct communication with each other" and told the BBC that Moscow would face "significant costs" for taking control of Crimea.
The former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who held office from 2004 to 2013, during which Russia went war with the country over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, told Al Jazeera that Putin had told him, "'Your friends in the West promised you lots of nice things, but they never deliver. Well, I don’t, I don’t promise you nice things at all, but I always deliver.'"
Still, Saakashvili is confident that, unlike the situation in Georgia in 2008, the crisis in Ukraine will ultimately force Putin out of power. While Putin is all about "being strong," Saakashvili said he's taken on too much this time.
"There is no way he can carry through," Saakashvili said. "The world, in general, not only the Western powers, are not really going to tolerate this kind of behavior from the country which doesn’t have adequate resources to do this."
He added that it will "signify the end of Putin, but it will be messy."
Russia has already paid a financial price for its military actions in Ukraine, with stocks, bonds and the ruble plunging on Monday as Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea.
The Moscow stock market fell by 11.3 percent, wiping nearly $60 billion off the value of Russian companies in a day, and the central bank spent $10 billion of its reserves to prop up the ruble as investors took fright at escalating tensions with the West over the former Soviet republic.
US backlash from Monday , has Putin neutered US pushback by way of Tuesday speech ?
Pentagon officials say that all military-to-military engagements, including joint exercises, meetings, and conferences have been placed “on hold” indefinitely.
The move is the first of what Obama Administration officials say will be a series of punitive actions designed to isolate Russia internationally, as well as economically.
The Pentagon downplayed reports of ship movements in the region, saying they have not changed any military planning or operations as a result of the Crimea situation.
Throughout the day, President Obama has continued to play up the idea of “costly sanctions” being imposed on Russia, and the first move come this evening, with officials announcing the cancellation of upcoming trade and investment talks with Russia.
And while the European Union seem sextremely reticent about launching an economic war against Russia out of spite for their involvement in Crimean secession, the State Department is insisting that is only the beginning.
Obama has promised “costly sanctions” on Russia, and State Department officials say that they are “not just considering sanctions” but a whole series of moves designed to punish Russia.
Officials have in particular played up the idea of travel bans for Russian officials and seizing the assets of Russian investors abroad, and Secretary of State John Kerry suggested the US might kick Russia out of the G8.
The Obama Administration’s response to the Crimean secession crisis has been threats and more threats, but while they present the world as united against Russia, the reality is that the EU is very uncomfortable with the US bellicosity.
The US is promising sanctions, travel bans, and asset seizures. There was even some talk of military action, with Secretary of State John Kerry and others saying “all options are on the table” over the Crimea.
The European Union’s foreign ministers have met on the issue, and they’re counseling restraint, urging mediation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to settle the territorial dispute.
And while the EU left open the idea of sanctions in principle, a British government document shows that Britain, usually America’s de facto voice in Europe, is loudly opposed to sanctions against Russia.
The reason is simple: Russia is an important business partner for much of Europe. London is a key hub for Russian investment, and Russia is about the only nearby source of oil and gas that isn’t already closed by sanctions (Syria and Iran), or a complete disaster (Libya).
Special Report: The Ukrainian crisis – partly fomented by U.S. neocons including holdovers at the State Department – has soured U.S-Russian relations and disrupted President Obama’s secretive cooperation with Russian President Putin to resolve crises in the Mideast, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
President Barack Obama has been trying, mostly in secret, to craft a new foreign policy that relies heavily on cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tamp down confrontations in hotspots such as Iran and Syria. But Obama’s timidity about publicly explaining this strategy has left it open to attack from powerful elements of Official Washington, including well-placed neocons and people in his own administration.
The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine that historically was part of Russia.
President Barack Obama discusses the crisis in Ukraine for 90 minutes on March 1, 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
Though I’m told the Ukraine crisis caught Obama and Putin by surprise, the neocon determination to drive a wedge between the two leaders has been apparent for months, especially after Putin brokered a deal to head off U.S. military strikes against Syria last summer and helped get Iran to negotiate concessions on its nuclear program, both moves upsetting the neocons who had favored heightened confrontations.
Putin also is reported to have verbally dressed down Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan over what Putin considered their provocative actions regarding the Syrian civil war. So, by disrupting neocon plans and offending Netanyahu and Bandar, the Russian president found himself squarely in the crosshairs of some very powerful people.
If not for Putin, the neocons – along with Israel and Saudi Arabia – had hoped that Obama would launch military strikes on Syria and Iran that could open the door to more “regime change” across the Middle East, a dream at the center of neocon geopolitical strategy since the 1990s. This neocon strategy took shape after the display of U.S. high-tech warfare against Iraq in 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union later that year. U.S. neocons began believing in a new paradigm of a uni-polar world where U.S. edicts were law.
The neocons felt this paradigm shift also meant that Israel would no longer need to put up with frustrating negotiations with the Palestinians. Rather than haggling over a two-state solution, U.S. neocons simply pressed for “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries that were assisting the Palestinians or Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Iraq was first on the neocon hit list, but next came Syria and Iran. The overriding idea was that once the regimes assisting the Palestinians and Hezbollah were removed or neutralized, then Israel could dictate peace terms to the Palestinians who would have no choice but to accept what was on the table.
U.S. neocons working on Netanyahu’s campaign team in 1996, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, even formalized their bold new plan, which they outlined in a strategy paper, called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The paper argued that only “regime change” in hostile Muslim countries could achieve the necessary “clean break” from the diplomatic standoffs that had followed inconclusive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, but President Bill Clinton refused to go along. The situation changed, however, when President George W. Bush took office and after the 9/11 attacks. Suddenly, the neocons had a Commander in Chief who agreed with the need to eliminate Iraq’s Saddam Hussein — and a stunned and angry U.S. public could be easily persuaded. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]
So, Bush invaded Iraq, ousting Hussein but failing to subdue the country. The U.S. death toll of nearly 4,500 soldiers and the staggering costs, estimated to exceed $1 trillion, made the American people and even Bush unwilling to fulfill the full-scale neocon vision, which was expressed in one of their favorite jokes of 2003 about where to attack next, Iran or Syria, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran!”
Though hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney pushed the neocon/Israeli case for having the U.S. military bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities – with the hope that the attacks also might spark a “regime change” in Tehran – Bush decided that he couldn’t risk the move, especially after the U.S. intelligence community assessed in 2007 that Iran had stopped work on a bomb four years earlier.
The Rise of Obama
The neocons were dealt another setback in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated a neocon favorite, Sen. John McCain. But Obama then made one of the fateful decisions of his presidency, deciding to staff key foreign-policy positions with “a team of rivals,” i.e. keeping Republican operative Robert Gates at the Defense Department and recruiting Hillary Clinton, a neocon-lite, to head the State Department.
Obama also retained Bush’s high command, most significantly the media-darling Gen. David Petraeus. That meant that Obama didn’t take control over his own foreign policy.
Gates and Petraeus were themselves deeply influenced by the neocons, particularly Frederick Kagan, who had been a major advocate for the 2007 “surge” escalation in Iraq, which was hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as a great “success” but never achieved its principal goal of a unified Iraq. At the cost of nearly 1,000 U.S. dead, it only bought time for an orderly withdrawal that spared Bush and the neocons the embarrassment of an obvious defeat.
So, instead of a major personnel shakeup in the wake of the catastrophic Iraq War, Obama presided over what looked more like continuity with the Bush war policies, albeit with a firmer commitment to draw down troops in Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan.
From the start, however, Obama was opposed by key elements of his own administration, especially at State and Defense, and by the still-influential neocons of Official Washington. According to various accounts, including Gates’s new memoir Duty, Obama was maneuvered into supporting a troop “surge” in Afghanistan, as advocated by neocon Frederick Kagan and pushed by Gates, Petraeus and Clinton.
Gates wrote that Kagan persuaded him to recommend the Afghan “surge” and that Obama grudgingly went along although Gates concluded that Obama didn’t believe in the “mission” and wanted to reverse course more quickly than Gates, Petraeus and their side wanted.
Faced with this resistance from his own bureaucracy, Obama began to rely on a small inner circle built around Vice President Joe Biden and a few White House advisers with the analytical support of some CIA officials, including CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Obama also found a surprising ally in Putin after he regained the Russian presidency in 2012. A Putin adviser told me that the Russian president personally liked Obama and genuinely wanted to help him resolve dangerous disputes, especially crises with Iran and Syria.
In other words, what evolved out of Obama’s early “team of rivals” misjudgment was an extraordinary presidential foreign policy style, in which Obama developed and implemented much of his approach to the world outside the view of his secretaries of State and Defense (except when Panetta moved briefly to the Pentagon).
Even after the eventual departures of Gates in 2011, Petraeus as CIA director after a sex scandal in late 2012, and Clinton in early 2013, Obama’s peculiar approach didn’t particularly change. I’m told that he has a distant relationship with Secretary of State John Kerry, who never joined Obama’s inner foreign policy circle.
Though Obama’s taciturn protectiveness of his “real” foreign policy may be understandable given the continued neocon “tough-guy-ism” that dominates Official Washington, Obama’s freelancing approach gave space to hawkish elements of his own administration.
For instance, Secretary of State Kerry came close to announcing a U.S. war against Syria in a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, only to see Obama pull the rug out from under him as the President worked with Putin to defuse the crisis sparked by a disputed chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How War on Syria Lost Its Way.”]
Similarly, Obama and Putin hammered out the structure for an interim deal with Iran on how to constrain its nuclear program. But when Kerry was sent to seal that agreement in Geneva, he instead inserted new demands from the French (who were carrying water for the Saudis) and nearly screwed it all up. After getting called on the carpet by the White House, Kerry returned to Geneva and finalized the arrangements.[See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Saudi-Israel Defeat on Iran Deal.”]
Unorthodox Foreign Policy
Obama’s unorthodox foreign policy – essentially working in tandem with the Russian president and sometimes at odds with his own foreign policy bureaucracy – has forced Obama into faux outrage when he’s faced with some perceived affront from Russia, such as its agreement to give temporary asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
For the record, Obama had to express strong disapproval of Snowden’s asylum, though in many ways Putin was doing Obama a favor by sparing Obama from having to prosecute Snowden with the attendant complications for U.S. national security and the damaging political repercussions from Obama’s liberal base.
Putin’s unforced errors also complicated the relationship, such as when he defended Russian hostility toward gays and cracked down on dissent before the Sochi Olympics. Putin became an easy target for U.S. commentators and comedians.
But Obama’s hesitancy to explain the degree of his strategic cooperation with Putin has enabled Official Washington’s still influential neocons, including holdovers within the State Department bureaucracy, to drive more substantive wedges between Obama and Putin. The neocons came to recognize that the Obama-Putin tandem had become a major impediment to their strategic vision.
Without doubt, the neocons’ most dramatic – and potentially most dangerous – counter-move has been Ukraine, where they have lent their political and financial support to opposition forces who sought to break Ukraine away from its Russian neighbor.
Though this crisis also stems from the historical division of Ukraine – between its more European-oriented west and the Russian-ethnic east and south – neocon operatives, with financing from the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other U.S. sources, played key roles in destabilizing and overthrowing the democratically elected president.
NED, a $100 million-a-year agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against targeted states, lists 65 projects that it supports financially inside Ukraine, including training activists, supporting “journalists” and promoting business groups, effectively creating a full-service structure primed and ready to destabilize a government in the name of promoting “democracy.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow US Foreign Policy.”]
State Department neocons also put their shoulders into shoving Ukraine away from Russia. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan and the sister-in-law of the Gates-Petraeus adviser Frederick Kagan, advocated strenuously for Ukraine’s reorientation toward Europe.
Last December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves,” by which she meant into the West’s orbit and away from Russia’s.
But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine’s economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych’s decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country’s western and more pro-European region.
Nuland was soon at work planning for “regime change,” encouraging disruptive street protests by personally passing out cookies to the anti-government demonstrators. She didn’t seem to notice or mind that the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square had hoisted a large banner honoring Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new government.
“Yats is the guy,” Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. “He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know.” By “Yats,” Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister — and who was committed to harsh austerity.
As Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. McCain cheered the demonstrators on, the street protests turned violent. Police clashed with neo-Nazi bands, the ideological descendants of Bandera’s anti-Russian Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazi SS during World War II.
With the crisis escalating and scores of people killed in the street fighting, Yanukovych agreed to a E.U.-brokered deal that called for moving up scheduled elections and having the police stand down. The neo-Nazi storm troopers then seized the opening to occupy government buildings and force Yanukovych and many of his aides to flee for their lives.
With these neo-Nazis providing “security,” the remaining parliamentarians agreed in a series of unanimous or near unanimous votes to establish a new government and seek Yanukovych’s arrest for mass murder. Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, emerged as interim prime minister.
Yet, the violent ouster of Yanukovych provoked popular resistance to the coup from the Russian-ethnic south and east. After seeking refuge in Russia, Yanukovych appealed to Putin for help. Putin then dispatched Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea. [For more on this history, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Cheering a ‘Democratic’ Coup in Ukraine.”]
Separating Obama from Putin
The Ukraine crisis has given Official Washington’s neocons another wedge to drive between Obama and Putin. For instance, the neocon flagship Washington Post editorialized on Saturday that Obama was responding “with phone calls” when something much more threatening than “condemnation” was needed.
It’s always stunning when the Post, which so energetically lobbied for the U.S. invasion of Iraq under the false pretense of eliminating its (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, gets its ire up about another country acting in response to a genuine security threat on its own borders, not half a world away.
But the Post’s editors have never been deterred by their own hypocrisy. They wrote, “Mr. Putin’s likely objective was not difficult to figure. He appears to be responding to Ukraine’s overthrow of a pro-Kremlin government last week with an old and ugly Russian tactic: provoking a separatist rebellion in a neighboring state, using its own troops when necessary.”
The reality, however, appears to have been that neocon elements from within the U.S. government encouraged the overthrow of the elected president of Ukraine via a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi storm troopers who then terrorized lawmakers as the parliament passed draconian laws, including some intended to punish the Russian-oriented regions which favor Yanukovych.
Yet, besides baiting Obama over his tempered words about the crisis, the Post declared that “Mr. Obama and European leaders must act quickly to prevent Ukraine’s dismemberment. Missing from the president’s statement was a necessary first step: a demand that all Russian forces – regular and irregular – be withdrawn … and that Moscow recognize the authority of the new Kiev government. … If Mr. Putin does not comply, Western leaders should make clear that Russia will pay a heavy price.”
The Post editors are fond of calling for ultimatums against various countries, especially Syria and Iran, with the implication that if they don’t comply with some U.S. demand that harsh actions, including military reprisals, will follow.
But now the neocons, in their single-minded pursuit of endless “regime change” in countries that get in their way, have taken their ambitions to a dangerous new level, confronting nuclear-armed Russia with ultimatums.
By Sunday, the Post’s neocon editors were “spelling out the consequences” for Putin and Russia, essentially proposing a new Cold War. The Post mocked Obama for alleged softness toward Russia and suggested that the next “regime change” must come in Moscow.
“Many in the West did not believe Mr. Putin would dare attempt a military intervention in Ukraine because of the steep potential consequences,” the Post wrote. “That the Russian ruler plunged ahead shows that he doubts Western leaders will respond forcefully. If he does not quickly retreat, the United States must prove him wrong.”
The madness of the neocons has long been indicated by their extraordinary arrogance and their contempt for other nations’ interests. They assume that U.S. military might and other coercive means must be brought to bear on any nation that doesn’t bow before U.S. ultimatums or that resists U.S.-orchestrated coups.
Whenever the neocons meet resistance, they don’t rethink their strategy; they simply take it to the next level. Angered by Russia’s role in heading off U.S. military attacks against Syria and Iran, the neocons escalated their geopolitical conflict by taking it to Russia’s own border, by egging on the violent ouster of Ukraine’s elected president.
The idea was to give Putin an embarrassing black eye as punishment for his interference in the neocons’ dream of “regime change” across the Middle East. Now, with Putin’s countermove, his dispatch of Russian troops to secure control of the Crimea, the neocons want Obama to further escalate the crisis by going after Putin.
Some leading neocons even see ousting Putin as a crucial step toward reestablishing the preeminence of their agenda. NED president Carl Gershman wrote in the Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
At minimum, the neocons hope that they can neutralize Putin as Obama’s ally in trying to tamp down tensions with Syria and Iran – and thus put American military strikes against those two countries back under active consideration.
As events spin out of control, it appears way past time for President Obama to explain to the American people why he has collaborated with President Putin in trying to resolve some of the world’s thorniest problems.
That, however, would require him to belatedly take control of his own administration, to purge the neocon holdovers who have worked to sabotage his actual foreign policy, and to put an end to neocon-controlled organizations, like the National Endowment for Democracy, that use U.S. taxpayers’ money to stir up trouble abroad. That would require real political courage.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/04/2014 15:23 -0500
Tuesday 04 March 2014 18.47
Pentagon officials say that all military-to-military engagements, including joint exercises, meetings, and conferences have been placed “on hold” indefinitely.
And while the European Union seem sextremely reticent about launching an economic war against Russia out of spite for their involvement in Crimean secession, the State Department is insisting that is only the beginning.
The US is promising sanctions, travel bans, and asset seizures. There was even some talk of military action, with Secretary of State John Kerry and others saying “all options are on the table” over the Crimea.
No comments:
Post a Comment