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US, EU set sanctions as Putin recognises Crimea sovereignty
US, EU set sanctions as Putin recognises Crimea sovereignty (Agencies) / 18 March 2014 US President Barack Obama slapped sanctions on 11 Russians and Ukrainians blamed for the seizure. The United States and European Union imposed personal sanctions on Monday on Russian and Crimean officials involved in the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognising the region as a sovereign state. The moves heightened the most serious East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War, following a disputed referendum in the Black Sea peninsula on Sunday in which Crimea’s leaders declared a Soviet-style, 97-percent vote to secede from Ukraine. Within hours, the Crimean parliament formally asked that Russia “admit the Republic of Crimea as a new subject with the status of a republic”. Putin will on Tuesday address a special joint session of Russia’s State Duma, or parliament, which could take a decision on annexation of the majority ethnic-Russian region. That would dismember Ukraine, a former Soviet republic once under Moscow’s thumb, against its will. Kiev and the West said the referendum, held under armed Russian occupation, violated Ukraine’s constitution and international law. Russian forces took control of Crimea in late February following the toppling of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich after deadly clashes between riot police and protesters trying to overturn his decision to spurn a trade and cooperation deal with the EU in favour of cultivating closer ties with Russia. US President Barack Obama slapped sanctions on 11 Russians and Ukrainians blamed for the seizure, including Yanukovich, and Vladislav Surkov and Sergei Glazyev, two aides to Putin. Putin himself, suspected in the West of trying to resurrect as much as possible of the former Soviet Union under Russian leadership, was not on the blacklist. A White House spokesman declined to rule out adding him at a later stage. Amid fears that Russia may move into eastern Ukraine where there is a significant Russian-speaking community, Obama warned that “further provocations” would only increase Moscow’s isolation and exact a greater toll on its economy. “If Russia continues to interfere in Ukraine, we stand ready to impose further sanctions,” he said. A senior US official said Obama’s order cleared the way to sanction people associated with the arms industry and targets “the personal wealth of cronies” of the Russian leadership. In Brussels, the EU’s 28 foreign ministers agreed to subject 21 Russian and Ukrainian officials to visa restrictions and asset freezes for their roles in the events. They included three Russian military commanders in Crimea and districts bordering on Ukraine. There were only three names in common on the US and European lists – Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, Crimean parliament speaker Vladimir Konstantinov and Leonid Slutski, chairman of the Russian Duma’s committee on the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), grouping former Soviet republics. The EU blacklisted Yanukovich earlier this month. The US list appeared to target higher-profile Russian officials close to Putin, including a deputy Russian prime minister, while the EU went for mid-ranking officials who may have been more directly involved on the ground. Washington and Brussels said further steps could follow in the coming days if Russia does not back down and formally annexes Crimea. A senior Obama administration official said there was “concrete evidence” that some ballots in the Crimea referendum arrived in some Crimean cities pre-marked. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was named on the White House sanctions list, suggested that the measures would not affect those without assets abroad. Obama said Russian forces must end “incursions” into its ex-Soviet neighbour, while Putin renewed his accusation that the new leadership in Kiev, brought to power by the uprising that toppled his elected Ukrainian ally last month, were failing to protect Russian-speakers from violent Ukrainian nationalists. Moscow responded to Western pressure for an international “contact group” to mediate in the crisis by proposing a “support group” of states. This would push for recognition of the Crimean referendum and urge a new constitution for rump Ukraine that would require it to uphold political and military neutrality. While a Western diplomat said some of the Russian ideas may offer scope for negotiation, Ukraine’s interim president ruled out ever accepting the annexation of its territory. A complete preliminary count of Sunday’s vote showed that 96.77 per cent of voters opted to join Russia, the chairman of the regional government commission overseeing the referendum, Mikhail Malyshev, announced on television. Officials said the turnout was 83 per cent. Crimea is home to 2 million people. Members of the ethnic Ukrainian and Muslim Tatar minorities had said they would boycott the poll, held just weeks after Russian forces took control of the peninsula. Putin’s popularity at home has been boosted by his action on Crimea despite serious risks for a stagnant economy. Russian shares and the rouble rebounded as investors calculated that Western sanctions would be largely symbolic and would avoid trade or financial measures that would inflict significant economic damage. However, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said EU countries had begun discussing the need for Europe to reduce its reliance on Russian energy “over many years to come”. Much of that energy is shipped through gas pipelines crossing Ukraine. In a sign of possible internal debates ahead, euro zone newcomer Latvia said the EU should compensate any countries hurt by sanctions against Russia. The three former Soviet Baltic states, home to Russian-speaking minorities and dependent on Russian energy supplies, could suffer in any retaliation. Moscow defended the takeover of Crimea by citing a right to protect “peaceful citizens”. Ukraine’s interim government has mobilised troops to defend against an invasion of its eastern mainland, where pro-Russian protesters have been involved in deadly clashes in recent days. The Ukrainian parliament on Monday endorsed a presidential decree for a partial military mobilisation to call up 40,000 reservists to counter Russia’ military actions. Ukraine recalled its ambassador from Moscow for consultations. Russia’s lower house of parliament will pass legislation allowing Crimea to join Russia “in the very near future”, news agency Interfax cited its deputy speaker as saying. US and European officials say military action is unlikely over Crimea, which Soviet rulers handed to Ukraine 60 years ago. Highlighting the stakes, journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, stood before an image of a mushroom cloud on his weekly TV show to issue a stark warning. He said: “Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.” Japan imposes sanctions on Russia over Crimea Japan has announced a set of sanctions against Russia for its recognition of Crimea as an independent state. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said in a statement that Japan does not recognize the outcome of Crimea’s referendum to split from Ukraine, saying it violates the Ukrainian constitution. Japan’s sanctions involve suspension of talks on relaxing visa requirements between Japan and Russia as well as planned talks on investment, space and military. The moves are seen as modest compared to sanctions by the US and European Union, which have frozen the assets of individuals linked to the unrest in Crimea or who support the region’s vote to secede from Ukraine. Kishida also urged Russia to comply with international laws, withdraw the recognition of Crimea’s independence and not move further toward its annexation. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Ukraine points west as US warns Russia against force
Ukraine points west as US warns Russia against force (Reuters) / 24 February 2014 US, Britain warn Russia against military intervention; acting president says European integration a top priority. Ukraine’s new interim president pledged to put the country back on course for European integration now Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich had been ousted, while the United States warned Russia against sending in its forces. Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko (C) meets with US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (L) and head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Jan Tombinski in Kiev. -Reuters As rival neighbours east and west of the former Soviet republic said a power vacuum in Kiev must not lead to the country breaking apart, acting president Oleksander Turchinov said on Sunday that Ukraine’s new leadership wanted relations with Russia on a “new, equal and good-neighbourly footing that recognises and takes into account Ukraine’s European choice”. A day after Yanukovich fled to the Russian-speaking east following dozens of deaths during street protests aimed at toppling him, parliament named new speaker Turchinov as interim head of state. An ally of the ousted leader’s long jailed rival Yulia Tymoshenko, he aims to swear in a government by Tuesday that can provide authority until a presidential election on May 25. With battle-hardened, pro-Western protesters in control of central Kiev and determined to hold their leaders to account, lawmakers rushed through decisions to cement their power, display their rejection of rampant corruption and bring to book officials who ordered police to fire on Independence Square. But whoever takes charge as interim prime minister faces a huge challenge to satisfy popular expectations and will find an economy in deep crisis, even if the EU makes good on new offers of aid that may help make up for loans that Russia has frozen. Scuffles in Russian-speaking Crimea and some eastern cities between supporters of the new, pro-EU order in Kiev and those anxious to stay close to Moscow revived fears of separatism that a week earlier were focused on the west, where Ukrainian nationalists had disowned Yanukovich and proclaimed self-rule. President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, was asked on US television about the possibility of Russia sending troops to Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin had hoped Yanukovich would keep closely allied to Moscow. “That would be a grave mistake,” Rice said. “It’s not in the interests of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or the United States to see a country split. It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate.” Yanukovich’s flight into hiding left Putin’s Ukraine policy in tatters, on a day he had hoped eyes would be on the grand finale to the Sochi Olympics. The Kremlin leader spoke on Sunday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose foreign minister had brokered a short-lived truce in Kiev on Friday. They agreed Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” must be maintained, Merkel’s spokesman said in a statement. British Foreign Secretary William Hague was asked if Russia might “send in the tanks” to defend its interests among ethnic Russians in the east and on the Crimea peninsula, where Moscow bases its Black Sea Fleet: “It would really not be in the interests of Russia to do any such thing,” he told the BBC. Earlier this month, a Kremlin aide warned that Moscow could intervene and accused Washington of breaching their 1994 treaty under which Russia removed Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine. It is unlikely the United States and its allies in Nato would risk an outright military confrontation with Russia but such rhetoric, laden with echoes of the Cold War, underlines the high stakes in Ukraine, whose 46 million people and sprawling territory are caught in a geopolitical tug of war. EU officials offered financial aid to a new government and to revive a trade deal that Yanukovich spurned under Russian pressure in November, sparking the protests that drove him from office after 82 deaths last week, many from police sniper fire. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel to Ukraine on Monday to discuss economic help, the EU said. The United States has also promised help. But budgets are tight in the EU and Washington, and international creditors like the IMF may remain wary of Yanukovich’s opponents, whose years in government before him were no economic success story. However, concern about instability and a popular desire to be seen backing what looks to Western voters like a democratic movement threatened by Russian diktat may loosen purse strings – at least to tide Ukraine over until after the elections. In Russia, where Putin hoped to count on Ukraine as a key element in a union of ex-Soviet states and might also fear the Kiev uprising could inspire his own opponents, the finance minister said the next tranche of a $15-billion loan package agreed in December would not be paid, at least before a new government is formed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to his office, told US Secretary of State John Kerry the opposition had “seized power” by force by ignoring the EU-brokered truce on Friday that left Yanukovich in office for the time being. Lavrov said that power-sharing agreement should be revived. However, even lawmakers from Yanukovich’s own party voted for his removal on Saturday and issued a statement blaming him and his entourage for the crisis. Business “oligarchs” – rich from control of ex-Soviet assets – also distanced themselves from a man long seen as their representative in the presidency. In a mark of passions dividing Ukrainians along a historic faultline between Russian and Ukrainian cultures, local television in Kerch, in eastern Crimea, showed a crowd hauling down the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag in front of the town hall and hoisting the white, blue and red Russian tricolour. Yanukovich, whose whereabouts remain unclear but who may be in his home city of Donetsk near the Russian border, accused opponents of a Nazi-style coup and said he remained in power. In a hectic round of voting in parliament, lawmakers rushed in some crowd-pleasing measures against the ousted administration, conscious that those still occupying Independence Square – or the Maidan – remain deeply suspicious of the political class. They stripped Yanukovich of his abandoned country home near Kiev. Its brash opulence, complete with ostrich farm and hot tubs, was put on display within hours and fuelled demands that the rough-hewn former petty criminal from the eastern coalfields be held to account for stealing taxpayer billions. Several officials and ministers were singled out for being removed from office, among them an education minister accused of promoting a Russian view of Ukrainian history. Parliament-appointed security officials announced legal moves against members of the ousted administration and those responsible for police attacks on the Maidan last week. Newly appointed speaker Oleksander Turchinov, now acting president, said a government should be in place by Tuesday. His ally, Tymoshenko, defeated by Yanukovich in a 2010 presidential election and later jailed for corruption, ruled herself out as interim premier. Freed from a prison hospital on Saturday after more than two years in jail, she may want time to recover and build support before running for the presidency. As prime minister following the largely peaceful Orange Revolution of 2004-05, which overturned a first presidential victory by Yanukovich, Tymoshenko disappointed many in Ukraine who had hoped for an end to the corruption and failed economic policies that marked the aftermath of Soviet communism. “In these days the most important thing is to form a functioning government,” said Vitaly Klitschko, a former world boxing champion and also a possible presidential contender. “We have to take very important steps in order to ensure the survival of the economy, which is in a very bad shape,” he told a news conference. He denied there had been a coup. “Parliament is the last legal official institution in Ukraine,” he said. “Nobody knows where the president of Ukraine is. We tried to find him all day yesterday. His location is unknown. He left the country without a president.” For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
‘Dishonesty’ Mars Russia’s Development In Farming
UK, 27th Sept 2013, by Agrimoney.com ‘Dishonesty’ mars Russia’s development in farming Russia’s development into a bigger agricultural power is being undermined by dishonesty among staff, and a lack of willingness to own up to errors, a leading farm advisor warned. Brian Redrup, who heads up agricultural advice for Velcourt in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, acknowledged the challenge to farming in Russia from weather extremes, and a history of periodic droughts. “Farming in Russia will be volatile due to climate,” said Mr Redrup. However, some farm business “are investing in irrigation to reduce the climatic effect”. Irrico, the agricultural investor backed by VTB, and Stokholm-listed Trigon Agri are among groups which have highlighted the importance to Russian farm operators of access to irrigation. ‘No accountability’ Mr Redrup said that the “significant factor” holding back the development of Russian agriculture “is honest, accountable farm management”. “If the climate is one major challenge, the other is competent management,” he said. “On a typical Russian unit, there will be a general director, chief agronomist and chief engineer. They will all blame one another if things go wrong, with no accountability.” He termed dishonesty as “another major issue”, which was “endemic from tractor drivers through to the senior management. “At tractor driver level, the stealing of diesel, fertiliser and chemicals can be a problem. At a higher level, the security of grain is questionable.” Russia vs Romania Mr Redrup is one of the most experienced consultants at Velcourt, which manages some 50,000 hectares of land in its home UK market alone, 35 years ago, the last 10 of which he has represented the group in Russia. “A UK farmer visiting [Russia] for the first time in late spring would be confident that they could achieve 10 tonnes per hectare across the board,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.” Velcourt in March set up a joint venture, with Mintridge, for investing in Eastern Europe farmland, but settled on Romania, within the European Union, as its target market. Romania offered “a compelling case for the three central factors that makes land an attractive asset class – scope for land value growth, the ability to acquire freehold land, and the soil quality for farming the land”, Velcourt said at the time Farm scams Some other agricultural figures have also flagged scams in Russia, and other countries, with inspection groups such as seeing the detection of scams as part of their services. Societe Generale de Surveillance, for instance, last year warned the International Grains Council’s annual conference that “fraud and corruption” in the former Soviet Union were issues “to be addressed”. “It still exists,” Mr Shulga, a Ukrainian said, pointing to examples where his company, which undertakes services from soil testing to inventory inspection, had discovered attempts to exaggerate grain inventories by piling them on top of bales, or on to a false floor near the top of a silos. People pretend their silo is full, and ask an inspection company to certify 20,000 tonnes,” certification which can be used as security against bank loans. “Proper checks find only 10 tonnes stored.” However, another farm manager with Russian experience said that while the country did have “issues”, these could be found in many other nations, including those in the West, and underlined the need to offer attractive employment packages to lure high quality staff. Continue reading
