DEVELOPMENTS
— Ukraine accused Russia of conducting a military buildup near the countries’ border that raises the threat of an invasion. Moscow said it would allow Ukraine to conduct a surveillance flight over Russian territory to prove that such a buildup is not taking place.
— Secretary of State John Kerry will fly to London to meet with his Russian counterpart in an 11th-hour effort to persuade the Kremlin not to move forward with the annexation of Crimea, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
— The Pentagon said the U.S. is sending 12 F-16 fighter jets to Poland to augment the air force detachment there. Last week, the U.S. sent six F-15 fighter jets to Lithuania to bolster air patrols over the Baltics, adding to the four planes already there.
News services
Counting down to a high-stakes Crimean referendum, President Barack Obama declared Wednesday that the U.S. would “completely reject” a vote opening the door for the strategic Ukrainian peninsula to join Russia if the election goes ahead on Sunday. Adding pressure on Russia, the Senate advanced a package of potentially tough economic sanctions against Moscow.
Obama made a point of welcoming Ukraine’s new leader to the White House, declaring as they sat side-by-side that he hoped there would be a “rethinking” by Russian President Vladimir Putin of the referendum. If the vote does occur, Obama said, the international community “will be forced to apply a cost to Russia’s violation of international law.”
Secretary of State John Kerry also was talking tough, telling Congress, “It can get ugly fast if the wrong choices are made, and it can get ugly in multiple directions.”
Amid the maneuvering, Obama met in the Oval Office with new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, praising him and the Ukrainian people as the two sat for TV coverage. The meeting was aimed at showcasing the United States’ commitment to Ukraine, the former Soviet republic at the center of rising tensions between East and West.
“There’s another path available and we hope President Putin is willing to seize that path,” Obama said. “But if he does not, I’m very confident that the international community will stand firmly behind the Ukrainian government.”
As Obama and Yatsenyuk met, a Senate committee moved forward on legislation with potential punishments for Russia. The measure, which next would go to the full Senate, would authorize $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine’s new government and allow the Obama administration to impose economic penalties on Russian officials responsible for the intervention in Crimea or culpable of gross corruption.
“Putin has miscalculated by playing a game of Russian roulette with the international community, but we refuse to blink and will never accept this violation of international law,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In the 14-3 vote, all committee Democrats supported the measure. Some Republican expressed concerns about how the U.S. would pay for the loan guarantees and about provisions to expand the lending authority of the International Monetary Fund.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who wasn’t present at the committee hearing because he attended jury duty in Miami, put out a statement outlining his opposition to the IMF provisions, saying the changes would hurt Ukraine and help Putin’s Russia — which would gain a marginally greater voting share in the lending body.
The bill stops short of going after Russian banks or energy companies, as some legislators proposed
Obama urged Congress to move quickly to finalize the loan guarantees, which are supposed to supplement $15 billion in assistance from the European Union, as well as additional money from the International Monetary Fund.
The money pledged thus far is less than Ukraine says it will need in order to recover from its recent political upheaval. The country’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, fled Kiev for Russia in late February amid growing protests over his decision to scrap an agreement to boost ties with Europe.
Shortly after Yanukovych left, Russia began moving military forces into Crimea, a strategically important peninsula where 60 percent of the population is ethnic Russian.
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