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Spiegel Online
Russia's occupation of Crimea has violated international law and created a new crisis among world leaders. Now the EU and the US are fighting over the best means to address Russia's reawakened expansionary ambitions.Everything in Simferopol, the capital of the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea, has suddenly changed. Shortly after noon on Thursday of last week, Cossacks from Russia sealed off the Crimean parliament building. The Russians, who had identified themselves as tourists a short time earlier, claimed that they were there to "check identification papers." Now Russia's white, blue and red flag flies above the building.
Two men accompany us as we walk up the steps to meet with the new premier of Crimea, who has taken over the office in a Moscow-backed coup. Under his leadership and with instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Crimean lawmakers have just voted to join the Russian Federation. Their decision is to be sealed with a referendum scheduled for Sunday, March 16.
DW
Visa bans, freezing assets, boycotts: There is no lack of suggestions of how to tone down Russian aggression. But what good would sanctions do? Politicians are growing increasingly skeptical. DW takes a look.The European Union has said it is halting visa talks with Russia following an emergency summit of the bloc's leaders where they discussed ways to punish Russia for its recent exploits on the Crimean Peninsula. If Russia continues to reject negotiations, further measures are to be taken, which could entail economic sanctions.
It didn't take long for the Kremlin to respond. Any sanction will be met with countermeasures from Moscow, an official government statement declared. The United States has already imposed visa bans on targeted Russians and warned of freezing their assets. In response, Russia has threatened to stop reciprocal weapons inspections.
The Guardian
Western officials will meet in London on Tuesday to identify Russians who will be subject to asset freezes and travel bans that officials hope will persuade Moscow to withdraw its presence from Crimea.The sanctions, which the British prime minister, David Cameron, indicated would be imposed within days, come as tensions escalate in the Crimean peninsula, where unidentified men reportedly fired warning shots as they moved into a Ukranian naval base on Monday.
In Washington, the White House gave its strongest indication yet that Russia is effectively being thrown out of the G8 group of industrialised nations on Monday, and insisted the world community would refuse to accept the results of a Crimean referendum later in the week.
Barack Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, said: "It is hard to see the G8 [summit] happening", in Sochi in June.
Carney said a referendum in Crimea, scheduled for Sunday, "would not be legal under Ukraine's constitution and therefore would not be accepted by the United States and its international allies and partners".
Al Jazeera America
Russian forces have tightened their grip on Crimea despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy, in a tense East-West standoff.In the latest armed action, unidentified armed men fired into the air as they moved into a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea on Monday, according to Reuters.
Crimea, a former Russian territory, is home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet and has an ethnic-Russian majority.
Ukraine’s defense minister told Interfax news service on Sunday that although Ukrainian armed forces are doing training exercises, Kiev has no plans to send troops to Crimea, Reuters said.
The White House announced on Sunday that Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk will travel to Washington this week to discuss the Crimea crisis, and the State Department said Monday that a trip by Secretary of State John Kerry to Russia to meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is up in the air. The U.S. insists that Russia must first engage "with seriousness" on the conflict.
DW
Construction workers are busy on the narrow Isthmus of Perekop that connects Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.
The road leading to Simferopol, Crimea's capital, is jammed with concrete blocks, both on the Crimean side and on Ukrainian mainland a few dozen meters (120 feet) away. It looks like they're constructing a border crossing.
The Ukrainian soldiers, Kalashnikov rifles in hand, their faces hidden by masks, look grim. A closer look reveals them as friendly, insecure young men. Just like the Russian soldiers 50 meters down the road.
"Boys, please don't shoot!" I say, only half-joking.
"Don't worry, we don't have orders to shoot," the young man on the Crimean side says, clearly a Russian officer. He declines to say who didn't give him orders to shoot - Moscow or Simferopol. He also won't let me take photos and informs me that he'll take away my camera if I do. The Ukrainians don't mind having their pictures taken.
New York Times
MOSCOW — When Vladimir V. Putin returned to the Russian presidency in 2012, one of the first messages he sent to his political elite, many of them heads of banks and large corporations, was that the times had changed: Owning assets outside Russia makes you too vulnerable to moves by foreign governments, he told them. It is time to bring your wealth home.Nearly two years later, those words sound like preparation. After a week of escalating tensions between Russia and the United States, it has become clear that the conflict over Ukraine will move to the battlefield of finance. Those same business titans are now contemplating the damage that the crisis could inflict on Russia’s economy.
Twenty years into the project of integrating Russia into Western institutions, they now face the prospect that the process could slow, or even reverse.