EU imposes sanctions over Crimea
The EU has agreed to impose travel bans and asset freezes on 21 people linked to unrest in Ukraine.
European Union foreign ministers have imposed the sanctions on 21 people they have linked to the push for the secession and possible annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
The sanctions came hours after Crimea’s parliament declared the region an independent state, following its residents’ vote to break away from Ukraine and seek to join Russia.
The ministers meeting in Brussels did not immediately release the names and nationalities of those targeted by the sanctions.
Two diplomats said the sanctions targeted 13 Russians and eight people from Crimea.
The 28-nation EU and the United States say Sunday’s Crimean referendum was illegitimate and unconstitutional.
President Barack Obama told Russian president Vladimir Putin on Sunday that the vote “would never be recognised” by the United States, as he and other top US officials warned Moscow against making further military moves toward southern and eastern Ukraine.
The EU is walking a tightrope between punishing Moscow and keeping open lines of communication with Russia for a diplomatic resolution of one of the worst geopolitical crises in years.
Before a meeting in Brussels, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said sanctions must leave “ways and possibilities open to prevent a further escalation that could lead to the division of Europe”.
The EU has already suspended talks with Russia on a wide-ranging economic pact and a visa agreement. The bloc’s leaders are meeting on Thursday and Friday and could start imposing economic sanctions on Russia this weekend if Moscow does not back down.
Western allies are calling on Putin to “de-escalate” the crisis, support Ukrainian plans for political reform, return Russian troops in Crimea to their barracks and halt advances into Ukraine and military build-ups along its borders.
Ukraine’s new government in Kiev called Sunday’s referendum a “circus” directed at gunpoint by Moscow. Putin, however, insisted it was conducted in “full accordance with international law and the UN charter” and cited Kosovo’s independence from Serbia as its precedent.
