WASHINGTON , MAR 01 -
President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that military
intervention in Ukraine would lead to "costs," as tension with old foe
President Vladimir Putin rose in a Cold War-style crisis.
"We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by
the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine," he told reporters.
Obama and European leaders would consider skipping a G8 summit this
summer in the Russian city of Sochi if Moscow intervenes militarily in
Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said. The G8 includes the world's seven
leading industrial nations and Russia.
"The United States will stand with the international community in
affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in
Ukraine," Obama said in the White House briefing room.
Facing yet another confrontation with Putin after butting heads with
him over Syria, Obama said any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and
territorial integrity would be "deeply destabilizing."
Obama did not spell out what he meant by Russian military intervention.
Russia has a huge naval base in Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and says it
has the right to move troops in Ukraine under an agreement between the
two former Soviet neighbors.
U.S. officials said they saw indications of Russian troop movements
into Crimea but that their numbers and intentions were unclear.
The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence
Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, said in a statement: "It appears that
the Russian military now controls the Crimean peninsula."
Vice President Joe Biden called Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny
Yatseniuk on Friday "to reaffirm the United States' strong support for
the new government and our commitment to the sovereignty, territorial
integrity, and democratic future of Ukraine," the White House said.
The crisis has presented Obama with a difficult challenge days after
the ouster of Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, who
fled to Russia following three months of protests in Kiev.
Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region in what the
new Ukrainian leadership described as an invasion by Moscow's forces,
and Yanukovich surfaced in Russia a week after he fled Kiev.
Ukraine fell into political crisis last year when Yanukovich spurned a
broad trade deal with the European Union and accepted a $15 billion
Russian bailout that is now in question.
A U.S. response to any Russian intervention in Ukraine could include
avoiding deeper trade and commerce ties that Moscow is seeking, the
senior U.S. official said.
Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine now at the Brookings
Institution think tank, said it was inconceivable that the United States
would consider a military response were Russia to seek to gain control
of Crimea, and that it had few plausible options to oppose such a move.
"If you look at the U.S.-Russian relationship, what kinds of things
could we do to punish them? There are not a lot of good levers there,"
he added.
Putin has proved immune to U.S. calls for Moscow to stop supporting
Syria's government in its three-year-old civil war. And the United
States was unable to prevent Putin from staging Russian incursions into
neighboring Georgia in 2008.
IMF SEES NO PANIC
In the struggle between the West and Russia for influence in Ukraine, both sides are wielding money.
Putin last year offered $15 billion for Kiev, $3 billion of which has
been delivered, in what was widely seen as a reward for Yanukovich's
turning away from the EU deal.
Now, support from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund is
seen as critical to shoring up Ukraine's collapsing finances. The United
States and the EU say they are willing to provide funds alongside an
IMF program.
Russia also supports the fund's involvement, and an IMF team is set to
arrive in Kiev early next week to collect information and start working
on a loan program.
But IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Friday suggested there
was no rush to help Ukraine, which says it needs $35 billion over two
years to avoid default and may need $4 billion immediately.
"We do not see anything that is critical, that is worthy of panic at
the moment," Lagarde told reporters. "We would certainly hope that the
(Ukrainian) authorities refrain from throwing lots of numbers which are
really meaningless until they've been assessed properly."
U.S. lawmakers are hammering out details of an assistance package for
Ukraine. Senator Chris Murphy, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on
European affairs, said the package would be part of a broader,
coordinated program with the EU, the IMF and other international
partners.
"I encourage the new government to implement the necessary economic
reforms to stabilize the economy and set Ukraine on a path to
prosperity, including rooting out corruption and increasing transparency
in government finances," Murphy said.
Republican Senator John McCain, a long-time Putin critic, said
diplomatic and economic sanctions could be imposed. But Putin does not
fear the United States, he told CNN.
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