AP, Washington :
President Barack Obama ordered economic sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and a major Russian bank that provides them support and he warned that more sweeping penalties against Russia’s robust energy sector could follow.
The additional sanctions raised the stakes in an East-West showdown over Ukraine.
Russia retaliated swiftly to Monday’s announcement, imposing entry bans on American lawmakers and senior White House officials, among them Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, n Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer and the president’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes.
It is far more than just a US-Russia dispute. European Union leaders on Wednesday levied sanctions against 12 more people linked to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, bringing the number of people facing EU sanctions to 33
The Western aim is twofold: to ratchet up the costs for Putin’s annexation and to head off any further Russian military inroads into Ukraine.
“The world is watching with grave concern as Russia has positioned its military in a way that could lead to further incursions into southern and eastern Ukraine,” Obama said, speaking from the South Lawn of the White House.
Thursday’s volleys deepened the confrontation over Ukraine, a standoff that has become one of the biggest political crises in Europe since the Cold War. Putin, rather than backing off as the West warns of costs, has defiantly moved military forces into Crimea, backed a referendum in which the Crimean people overwhelming voted to join Russia and then signed a treaty formally absorbing the strategically important peninsula into Russia.
In Ukraine, pro-Russian forces seized three Ukrainian warships Thursday, and US officials acknowledge privately that there is little chance of Russia giving up Crimea now. The more pressing concern is stopping Putin from pushing into other Ukrainian areas with large ethnic Russian populations. Thousands of Russian troops are currently positioned along Ukraine’s eastern border.
The Pentagon said Russia’s defense minister assured Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that those forces have no intention of crossing into Ukrainian territory and are only in the region to conduct military exercises. The two men spoke by phone for an hour.
