Brussels and Kiev - EU governments are set to impose their broadest sanctions yet against Russia, punishing President Vladimir Putin for flouting an ultimatum to end the rebellion in Ukraine, a draft document showed.
Leaders meeting in Brussels may agree to penalise Russian companies, halt lending for investment projects, stop bilateral co-operation programmes and further clamp down on commerce with Crimea, according to the draft statement obtained by Bloomberg News.
Calls on the country to stop meddling in Ukraine and supporting separatist rebels “have not been fully met”, EU leaders said in the draft.
The 28-nation bloc “condemns the continuation of illegal activities by armed militants in eastern Ukraine” and will “proceed with the expansion of restrictive measures”.
If confirmed, the draft would mark a compromise on a policy towards Russia that has been squeezed from all sides.
While eastern European governments have pressed for economic and trade curbs, western and southern countries have urged diplomacy, and the US has goaded the EU to overcome its internal divisions. Germany, the UK and France – the EU’s three big powers – have all signalled recently that they are on board for stiffer penalties against Putin.
Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren said Russia had 10 000 to 12 000 troops on the Ukraine border, and that Russian troops’ presence had been increasing in the past several weeks. He called it “intimidating”.
The EU summit follows a meeting in Washington of EU ambassadors and US officials, who told their European allies Russia was sending heavy weapons, including tanks and rockets, as well as other means of support to separatists in eastern Ukraine in contradiction to statements by Putin’s government that it is trying to pursue peace.
Russia had “insufficiently met expectations” to use its influence on separatists in Ukraine and effectively patrol the Ukraine-Russia border, Steffen Seibert, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, said at a regular government press briefing in Berlin yesterday.
“There is a good case for going further and hardening sanctions,” said Jean-Christophe Gray, UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman. “Despite the words coming from Moscow, we’ve not seen enough action on ground.”
Russia has not acknowledged any direct support for the rebels, whom Ukrainian forces were trying to encircle and defeat in its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. It condemned the government in Kiev’s efforts to confront the rebels and said it reserved the right to protect Russian speakers abroad.
Eleven Ukrainian soldiers died in fighting since Tuesday, the Defence Ministry’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said. One person was killed and nine were wounded in a battle in Luhansk, an eastern city of about 450 000 people, the municipal council said yesterday.
He said the fiercest fighting yesterday between Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russian insurgents was taking place in the cities of Amvrosiyivka and Marynivka and near the border checkpoint, Izvaryno.
The EU has slapped travel bans and asset freezes on 72 people accused of destabilising Ukraine and engineering Crimea’s annexation. Two firms have been blacklisted.
The draft EU measures would pave the way for the blacklisting of a broader array of companies. The EU would halt lending for public sector projects by the European Investment Bank, the bloc’s in-house lender, and use its influence to stop new lending by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. EU leaders would weigh “additional measures” to restrict commerce with Crimea. – Bloomberg