The US and EU hit Russia with tough new sanctions on Friday in a coordinated riposte to Moscow’s “unacceptable behavior” in Ukraine, despite a fragile truce.
Moscow responded by accusing its foes of seeking to derail the peace efforts aimed at halting a conflict that has killed more than 2,700 people across Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
Russian news agencies reported that Russia’s border guards had waved through the first 35 vehicles of an aid convoy heading for devastated east Ukraine, after Moscow sent in a first convoy last month without Ukraine’s final approval or Red Cross monitors.
Photo: Reuters
While the guns have largely fallen silent after five months of fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels, the rhetoric in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War has just grown louder.
In some of the toughest measures yet to punish the Kremlin for allegedly fomenting the insurgency, Washington targeted Russia’s largest bank Sberbank — which holds the deposits of nearly half of all Russian savers — and leading energy and technology companies.
“These steps underscore the continued resolve of the international community against Russia’s aggression,” US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said.
The fresh EU measures were also aimed at major Russian energy, finance and defense companies, including oil giant Rosneft and famed weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov.
The 28-member bloc also imposed asset freezes and visa bans on a host of Russian figures, including allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as rebels in Ukraine and Crimea, a Ukrainian region that Russia annexed.
The ruble sank to a historic low and Moscow stock markets fell, fearful of the impact on an already fragile economy.
However, in what was seen as a concession, Brussels agreed to delay implementing a trade deal with Ukraine that is opposed by Russia.
A dismissive Putin said the sanctions would have little effect and accused the West of using them as an “instrument to destabilize international relations.”
EU nations approved the measures after deep divisions emerged in the wake of the ceasefire, with some worried about the effect on their own economies of any reprisals by Moscow. Brussels will reconsider the measures after reviewing the truce at the end of this month.
Moscow has already threatened to bar EU airlines from its airspace, and has drawn up a list targeting imports of consumer goods and second-hand cars from the West.
European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, on a visit of solidarity to Kiev just as the sanctions took effect, chided Russia over its “unacceptable behavior” in its Western neighbor.
In talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, he described the ceasefire — the first backed by both Kiev and Moscow since the conflict erupted in April — as a positive step.
“However, it is still insufficient to guarantee sustainable peace,” he added.
The West remains deeply suspicious over Moscow’s territorial ambitions after it seized Crimea in March in the chaotic weeks that followed the ousting of pro-Kremlin former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
Kiev and NATO say that about 1,000 Russian troops are still in Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities say the insurgents now control territory stretching about 300km along the eastern border to the Sea of Azov after a lightning surge reportedly backed by elite Russian forces just days before the truce.
The sudden shift in fortunes, reversing a series of Ukrainian military successes, prompted suggestions that Kiev had negotiated the deal signed in the Belarussian capital Minsk from a position of weakness.
In a conciliatory gesture this week, Poroshenko announced he would submit a bill to the Ukrainian parliament granting parts of the east temporary self-rule, although vowing to keep the nation united.
The leaders of the self-declared “people’s republics” in the mainly Russian-speaking Donetsk and Lugansk regions say however they have no intention of abandoning the fight for full independence.
With the West firmly on his side, Poroshenko demonstrated his determination to remove his country further from Russia’s orbit by boosting ties with Brussels and Washington.
He announced the Ukrainian and European parliaments would meet on Tuesday to jointly ratify an association agreement that was scrapped by Yanukovych, but is to come into effect on Nov. 1.
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