Moscow defies West's pressure
President Vladimir Putin rebuffed a warning from US President Barack Obama over Moscow's military intervention in Crimea, saying yesterday that Russia could not ignore calls for help from Russian speakers in Ukraine.
After an hour-long telephone call, Putin said in a statement that Moscow and Washington were still far apart on the situation in the former Soviet republic, where he said the new authorities had taken "absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.
"Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law," Putin said.
Ukraine's border guards said Moscow had poured troops into the southern peninsula where Russian forces have seized control, reports Reuters.
Top Russian lawmakers yesterday welcomed the prospect of Crimea joining the country, despite stiffening sanctions on Moscow over the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
The heads of Russia's two houses of parliament said they would respect a decision by lawmakers in Ukraine's majority-Russian peninsula to renounce ties with Kiev and stage a March 16 referendum on switching over to Kremlin rule.
"Should the people of Crimea decide to join Russia in a referendum, we... will unquestionably back this choice," said speaker of the upper house Valentina Matviyenko.
"We will respect the historic choice of the people of Crimea," said her lower house counterpart Sergei Naryshkin.
The escalating threat of the ex-Soviet nation of 46 million splintering between its pro-European west and more Russified southeast prompted Obama to place an hour-long call to Russian counterpart.
It marked the leaders' second lengthy phone call in five days and both sides described it as tough.
After the telephone call, the White House said Obama "emphasised that Russia's actions are in violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, which has led us to take several steps in response, in coordination with our European partners."
The Kremlin for its part said Putin tried to calm tensions by stressing that US-Russian relations "should not be sacrificed due to disagreements over individual -- albeit extremely significant -- international problems."
The conflict, resulting from the overthrow last month of President Viktor Yanukovich after violent protests in Kiev, escalated on Thursday when Crimea's parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, voted to join Russia. The region's government set a referendum for March 16 — in just nine days' time.
European Union leaders and Obama denounced the referendum as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine's constitution.
Japan yesterday endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia, whose forces have seized control of the Crimean peninsula, constitute "a threat to international peace and security," after Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the UN Security Council, was more cautious, saying that economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the legality of a Crimean referendum on secession.
After the referendum move on Thursday, Ukraine immediately took steps to disband Crimea's parliament. Ukraine's interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk yesterday called Crimea's pro- Kremlin leaders "traitors" and said "no part of Ukraine will ever be a part of Russia".
Washington announced visa bans on targeted Russians and Ukrainians in the latest in a series of moves by the US administration to punish Moscow. Obama also authorised freezing the assets of officials involved in ordering Russia's military manoeuvres in Crimea.
European leaders -- split between hawkish eastern European states that were under Kremlin's zone of influence during the Cold War and big western European powers that want to limit the damage to their economic relations with Russia -- renewed a commitment to sign an EU association accord with Ukraine by May.
Ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych's decision to ditch that pact in November in favour of closer ties with Russia sparked the initial wave of protests that led to his regime's downfall and the rise of the new pro-EU government.
The EU agreed after six hours of tense discussions to suspend visa and economic talks with Russia -- a blow for Moscow's years-long efforts to win open European travel rights.
And they adopted a tough statement demanding Russia enter into negotiations in the next few days to produce "results" on cooling the crisis -- threatening travel bans and asset freezes along with the cancellation of an EU-Russia summit in June if not.
EU leaders also froze the assets of Yanukovych -- now living in Russia -- and his prime minister Mykola Azarov along with 16 other former ministers.
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