LONDON - An eleventh-hour bid by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to ease the escalating crisis over the Kremlin’s intervention in Crimea ended inconclusively Friday, with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, declaring that Russia and the West have no “common vision” about the events that led to the impasse.
In a more positive vein, Lavrov said Russia “does not have any plans to invade eastern or southern Ukraine,” despite the buildup of Russian forces in regions along the Ukrainian border that has raised fears in Ukraine and beyond that an invasion could be imminent.
Lavrov has held firm to Russia’s positions throughout the Ukrainian crisis, denouncing the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych as a coup, refusing to recognize the new government, opposing the creation of a “contact group” and reiterating Crimea’s right to self-determination.
“We don’t have a common vision of the situation,” Lavrov said after the talks, which he nonetheless called helpful in clarifying the seemingly intractable positions. “Our differences remain.”
Lavrov refused to say whether Russia would move to recognize Crimea as an independent state or to absorb it as a region of the Russian Federation. Instead, he repeated President Vladimir Putin’s pledge to “respect the choice” of voters in a referendum on secession Sunday, after which Russia would announce its next steps.
“It makes no sense to speculate at this point,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
He brushed aside the threats of sanctions and other punitive measures made by President Barack Obama and European leaders, saying Kerry “made no threats regarding Russia.” He said the sanctions that have been widely discussed by officials and reported in the news media would be “a counterproductive instrument.”
“This will definitely not help our mutual interest,” he said.
Asked why other countries did not support Crimea’s desire for independence, he replied that they treated efforts to declare independence case by case. “If Kosovo is a special case, then Crimea is also a special case,” he said.
The Kremlin sent a paper to the State Department on Monday night that argued that Crimea’s secession from Ukraine would be as legitimate as Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, which the United States supported.
Also Friday, Putin spoke by telephone with the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, the Kremlin said in a statement. It emphasized that the decision to hold the referendum on Crimea’s status “fully complies with international law and the U.N. Charter.” Western nations have called the referendum illegal.
Ban did not say anything specific about the referendum, he said, but he warned of “a great risk of a dangerous downward spiral.”
“I urge all concerned to avoid provocation and hasty decisions in the coming days,” he added. “The focus must be to engage in direct dialogue aimed at agreeing on specific measures that will pave the way towards a diplomatic solution.”
Before the London meeting, Western officials said they believed there was little chance of delaying the referendum in Crimea, but they said there might yet be an opportunity to negotiate a political resolution if Russia would refrain from taking the next step of formally annexing Crimea.
In Washington, Obama again warned Russia against further escalation. “We continue to hope for a diplomatic outcome,” he told reporters as Kerry and Lavrov were meeting. But he said, “There will be consequences” if Ukraine’s sovereignty is violated.
As of Friday, there had been no sign that Putin was prepared to take the “off ramp” that the Obama administration has repeatedly offered. He instead ordered a snap exercise involving thousands of troops near Ukraine’s borders this week.
As Russia announced additional military exercises, including flights by fighter jets in the Mediterranean, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow blamed the new authorities in Kiev for losing control of the country and reiterated Putin’s vow to defend Russian “compatriots” in Ukraine.
The ministry’s statement, released on its website, cited violence during competing rallies in the eastern city of Donetsk on Thursday night that left one person dead and many others injured. The ministry attributed the violence to “right wing groups” that supported the government in Kiev.
Reports from witnesses and footage on state television suggested that pro-Russian protesters had attacked their rivals.
“Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under protection,” the ministry’s statement said.
Ukraine responded by calling the Russian statement “impressive in its cynicism.”
The Donetsk clashes had “a direct connection to deliberate, destructive actions of certain citizens of Russia and some Russian social organizations, representatives of which are present in our country to destabilize the situation and escalate tensions,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Evgeny Perebiynis said
In Kiev, meanwhile, a senior U.N. official said the body planned to send monitors throughout Ukraine, including Crimea, to investigate reports of human-rights violations.
“Warning signs about systemic human-rights violations were neglected for many years, including the concerns and recommendations of international human-rights bodies,” said Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary for human rights. “There are serious concerns about the weakness of rule of law institutions, lack of accountability and ensuing impunity for human-rights violations. Reports of torture and ill-treatment are also numerous.”
Adding to the worries were reports that large numbers of Russians are being bused to the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk so that they can agitate against the new Ukrainian government under the supervision of Russian intelligence officers.
A major question for the United States and its partners is whether Putin’s strategy is limited to protecting Russian interests in Crimea or is the first move in a broader campaign to undermine Ukraine’s new government and weaken its authority over the eastern portion of the country.
The outlines of the sort of political settlement the United States is seeking emerged Wednesday when Obama and Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, suggested that they would be willing to support expanded autonomy for Crimea if Russia were prepared to reverse its military intervention. Yatsenyuk also said his government would affirm an agreement that permits Russia to maintain a naval base there.
“We are going to present within the context of a unified, sovereign Ukraine the best offer for de-escalation that the Ukrainian people can accept and see if Russia is prepared to take that off ramp,” a State Department official said.
U.S. officials said American and European sanctions against Russia would be announced early next week if the referendum takes place Sunday, and that more economic sanctions would be imposed if Russia escalates the conflict.
A European Union official with knowledge of the preparations said Friday that EU governments are set to sidestep Russian businesses and focus sanctions on individuals with a political involvement in the seizure of Crimea.
Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that the EU and U.S. are planning to impose sanctions on Russians including Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of Russian gas-export monopoly Gazprom, and Igor Sechin, who heads Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer. Bild cited sources in Washington and Brussels it didn’t name for its report.
As the governments prepared to impose sanctions, the State Department on Friday advised U.S. citizens in Russia to be alert amid the potential for increased public demonstrations and anti-American actions.
The department also advised Americans in Russia to be aware of the heightened military presence along the border region with Ukraine and to avoid all public demonstrations and any public gatherings that lack enhanced security measures.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation of eight U.S. senators led by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., went to Kiev’s Independence Square, the site of the protests, to show support for the interim government Friday. They laid flowers on a barricade turned into a memorial and toured Instituska Street, where many protesters were killed in clashes last month.
“It’s pretty sobering to come here,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “I saw the bullet holes in the lampposts. It speaks to the great determination of the Ukrainian people.And that determination will be needed in the coming weeks and months.”
Also Friday, a senior Obama administration official said U.S. frictions with Russia over Ukraine have not interfered with discussions concerning pending Iran nuclear negotiations, and expressed hope that the deepening conflict “will not put these negotiations at risk.”
In a media briefing ahead of a negotiating session set for Monday in Vienna, the official said U.S. and Russian officials spoke “at great length” on Iran this week, as U.S. officials did with other envoys from the six-nation group that is seeking to work out a deal with Iran. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject.
The Obama administration and the five other governments are seeking to negotiate a deal with Iran to ensure that its nuclear program does not develop bomb-making capability.
U.S. officials have generally argued that they believe Russia will continue to cooperate on Iran because it doesn’t want another nuclear-armed state on its border. However, some former officials have said Moscow could undermine the talks in retaliation for U.S. pressure over Ukraine.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Gordon, Steven Lee Myers,Andrew E. Kramer, Alan Cowell, Peter Baker and Somini Sengupta of The New York Times; by Paul Richterof the Tribune Washington Bureau; by Ian Wishart and James G. Neuger of Bloomberg News; and by Cassandra Vinograd, Lara Jakes, Peter Leonard, Vladimir Isachenkov, Maria Danilova, Jim Heinz and staff members of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/15/2014