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 The sudden acceleration of moves to bring Crimea, which has an
ethnic Russian majority and has effectively been seized by Russian
forces, formally under Moscow's rule came as European Union leaders
gathered for an emergency summit to seek ways to pressure Russia to
back down and accept mediation.
The Crimean parliament voted unanimously "to enter into the Russian
Federation with the rights of a subject of the Russian Federation".
The vice premier of Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea military base
in Sevastopol, said a referendum on the status would take place on
March 16.
The announcement, which diplomats said could not have been made
without Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval, raised the
stakes in the most serious east-west confrontation since the end of
the Cold War.
Far from seeking a diplomatic way out, Putin appears to have chosen
to create facts on the ground before the West can agree on more than
token action against him.
EU leaders had been set to warn but not sanction Russia over its
military intervention after Moscow rebuffed Western diplomatic
efforts to persuade it to pull forces in Crimea, with a population
of about 2 million, back to their bases. It was not immediately
clear what impact the Crimean moves would have.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a Twitter
message: "We stand by a united and inclusive #Ukraine."
French President Francois Hollande told reporters on arrival at the
summit: "There will be the strongest possible pressure on Russia to
begin lowering the tension and in the pressure there is, of course,
eventual recourse to sanctions."
The new Ukrainian government has declared the referendum illegal and
opened a criminal investigation against Crimean Prime Minister
Sergei Askyonov, who was appointed by the region's parliament last
week. The Ukrainian government does not recognize his authority or
that of the parliament.
A Crimean parliament official said voters will be asked two
questions: should Crimea be part of the Russian Federation and
should Crimea return to an earlier constitution (1992) that gave the
region more autonomy?
"If there weren't constant threats from the current illegal
Ukrainian authorities, maybe we would have taken a different path,"
deputy parliament speaker Sergei Tsekov told reporters outside the
parliament building in Crimea's main city of Simferopol.
"I think there was an annexation of Crimea by Ukraine, if we are
going to call things by their name. Because of this mood and feeling
we took the decision to join Russia. I think we will feel much more
comfortable there."
TENSION HIGH
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov refused to meet his new
Ukrainian counterpart or to launch a "contact group" to seek a
solution to the crisis at talks in Paris on Wednesday despite
arm-twisting by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and European
colleagues. The two men will meet again in Rome on Thursday.
Tension was high in Crimea after a senior United Nations envoy was
surrounded by a pro-Russian crowd, threatened and forced to get back
on his plane and leave the country on Wednesday.
The EU summit in Brussels seemed unlikely to adopt more than
symbolic measures against Europe's biggest gas supplier, because
neither industrial powerhouse Germany nor financial center Britain
is keen to start down that road.
The United States has said it is ready to impose sanctions such as
visa bans, asset freezes on individual Russian officials and
restrictions on business ties within days rather than weeks.
Russia's ruble currency weakened further on Thursday despite central
bank intervention due to what analysts at VTB Capital called the
political risk premium.
The short, informal EU summit will mostly be dedicated to displaying
support for Ukraine's new pro-Western government, represented by
Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, who will attend even though Kiev is
neither an EU member nor a recognized candidate for membership.
After meeting European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Yatseniuk
appealed to Russia to respond to mediation efforts.
The European Commission announced an aid package of up to 11 billion
euros ($15 billion) for Ukraine over the next couple of years
provided it reaches a deal with the International Monetary Fund,
entailing painful reforms like ending gas subsidies.
Diplomats said that at most, the 28-nation EU would condemn Russia's
so far bloodless seizure of the Black Sea province and suspend talks
with Moscow on visa liberalization and economic cooperation, while
threatening further measures if Putin does not accept mediation
efforts soon.
They were expected hold back from tougher steps both in hopes of a
diplomatic breakthrough and out of fear of a tit-for-tat trade war
with Russia, a major economic partner of Europe.
France has a deal to sell warships to Russia that it is so far not
prepared to cancel, London's banks have profited from facilitating
Russian investment, and German companies have $22 billion invested
in Russia.
Before the summit, European members of the Group of Eight major
economies will meet separately, diplomats said, in an apparent
effort to coordinate positions towards Russia, due to host the next
G8 summit in Olympic venue Sochi in June. They have so far stopped
participating in preparatory meetings and Canada has said G7
countries may meet soon without Russia.
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ILLEGITIMATE
The crisis began in November when Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovich, under strong Russian pressure, turned his back on a far
reaching trade deal with the EU and accepted a $15 billion bailout
from Moscow. That prompted three months of street protests leading
to the overthrow of Yanukovich on February 22.
Moscow denounced the events as an illegitimate coup and refused to
recognize the new Ukrainian authorities.
Russia kept the door ajar for more diplomacy on its own terms,
announcing on Thursday a meeting of former Soviet states in the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including Ukraine, for
April 4 and saying it would be preceded by contacts between Russian
and Ukrainian diplomats.
Lavrov said attempts by Western countries to take action over the
Ukraine crisis via democracy watchdog OSCE and the NATO military
alliance were not helpful.
In a move that may alarm some of Russia's neighbors and the West,
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced steps to ease
handing out passports to native Russian speakers who have lived in
Russia or the former Soviet Union.
Putin has cited the threat to Russian citizens to justify military
action in both Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine now.
After a day of high-stakes diplomacy in Paris on Wednesday, Lavrov
refused to talk to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchitsya,
whose new government is not recognized by Moscow.
As he left the French Foreign Ministry, Lavrov was asked if he had
met his Ukrainian counterpart. "Who is that?" the Russian minister
asked.
He stuck to Putin's line — ridiculed by the West — that Moscow does
not command the troops without national insignia which have taken
control of Crimea, besieging Ukrainian forces, and hence cannot
order them back to bases.
Kerry said afterwards he had never expected to get Lavrov and
Deshchitsya into the same room right away, but diplomats said France
and Germany had tried to achieve that.
Western diplomats said there was still hope that once Lavrov had
reported back to Putin, Russia would accept the idea of a "contact
group" involving both Moscow and Kiev as well as the United States
and European powers to seek a solution.
The European Union formally announced it had frozen the assets of
ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovich and 17 other officials,
including former prime minister Mykola Azarov, suspected of human
rights violations and misuse of state funds.
"RUSSIA! RUSSIA!"
In an awkward coincidence as EU leaders were gathering in Brussels,
German Economy Minister and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel traveled
to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart and Putin.
Reflecting concern about how the long-planned trip might be seen in
the midst of the Ukraine crisis, Gabriel dropped at the last minute
plans to take along German industrialists with him. Germany has been
accused in some quarters of soft-pedaling on sanctions in the light
of its close economic ties to Russia.
In eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian crowd in Donetsk, Yanukovich's
home town, recaptured the regional administration building they had
occupied before being ejected by police. But police loyal to the new
authorities in Kiev raised the Ukrainian flag over the building
again on Thursday.
Putin has said Russia reserves the right to intervene militarily in
other areas of Ukraine if Russian interests or the lives of Russians
are in danger.
Dropping diplomatic niceties on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department
published a "fact sheet" entitled "President Putin's Fiction: 10
False Claims about Ukraine."
"As Russia spins a false narrative to justify its illegal actions in
Ukraine, the world has not seen such startling Russian fiction since
Dostoyevsky wrote, 'The formula "two plus two equals five" is not
without its attractions,'" the State Department said in the
document.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels, Elizabeth Piper and
Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Tim Heritage in Kiev, John Irish and Lesley
Wroughton in Paris; writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Anna Willard)
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