Agencies, Moscow :
President Vladimir Putin rebuffed a warning from US President Barack Obama over Moscow’s military intervention in Crimea, saying on Friday that Russia could not ignore calls for help from Russian speakers in Ukraine.
After an hour-long telephone call, Putin said in a statement that Moscow and Washington were still far apart on the situation in the former Soviet republic, where he said the new authorities had taken “absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.
“Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law,” Putin said.
The most serious east-west confrontation since the end of the Cold War – resulting from the overthrow last month of President Viktor Yanukovich after violent protests in Kiev – escalated on Thursday when Crimea’s parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, voted to join Russia. The region’s government set a referendum for March 16 – in just nine days’ time.
European Union leaders and Obama denounced the referendum as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine’s constitution.
The head of Russia’s upper house of parliament said after meeting visiting
Crimean lawmakers on Friday that Crimea had a right to self-determination, and ruled out any risk of war between “the two brotherly nations”.
Before calling Putin, Obama announced the first sanctions against Russia since the start of the crisis, ordering visa bans and asset freezes against so far unidentified persons deemed responsible for threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Japan endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia, whose forces have seized control of the Crimean peninsula, constitute “a threat to international peace and security”, after Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the UN Security Council, was more cautious, saying that economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the legality of a Crimean referendum on secession.
The EU, Russia’s biggest economic partner and energy customer, adopted a three-stage plan to try to force a negotiated solution but stopped short of immediate sanctions.
Brussels and Washington also rushed to strengthen the new authorities in economically shattered Ukraine, announcing both political and financial assistance.
Promises of billions of dollars in Western aid for the Kiev government, and the perception that Russian troops are not likely to go beyond Crimea into other parts of Ukraine, have helped reverse a rout in the local hryvnia currency.
Meanwhile, The United States on Thursday sent six additional F-15 fighter jets to step up NATO’s air patrols over the Baltic states, mission host Lithuania said as West-Russia tensions simmered over Ukraine.
“I have had confirmation that the air police missions will be reinforced by six additional F-15 fighters,” Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told AFP.
The move is a response to “Russian aggression in Ukraine and additional military activity in the Kaliningrad region,” Russia’s exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, he said.
“We have witnessed increased military activity in Kaliningrad. Today it is less than three or four days before.”
Ukraine’s interim prime minister has warned the Crimean parliament “no-one in the civilised world” will recognise its referendum on joining Russia.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk and others in the Kiev government have called the vote “unconstitutional” and “illegitimate”. But the referendum has the support of the Russian parliament.
The speaker of the upper house said if the Crimean people vote on 16 March to join Russia then they would “unquestionably back this choice”.
CNN adds: Russia’s parliament gave its defiant support Friday to Crimean lawmakers who want to see their region split from Ukraine and join Russia, saying no sanctions imposed by the United States or Europe will change its mind.
A delegation from the Crimean parliament, in Moscow a day after its lawmakers voted unanimously to split from Ukraine, said it would put the decision to a public vote on March 16.
