MOSCOW: Western leaders, faced with Russian assertiveness not seen since the Cold War, have threatened more sanctions in the key areas of energy, financial services and engineering if Moscow disrupts a presidential election planned in Ukraine on May 25.
EU officials have prepared a list of 14 people and two Crimean companies active in the energy sector that ministers are likely to add to the EU sanctions list, EU diplomats said.
But the EU will remain far behind the United States in the severity of the sanctions it has imposed on Russia. Some European governments fear tough trade sanctions on Russia could undermine their own economies, just recovering from the financial crisis, and provoke Russian retaliation.
Moscow denies any ambitions to absorb the mainly Russian-speaking east, an industrial hub, into the Russian Federation following its annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea after a referendum in March.
But in a sign it may have set its sights beyond Crimea, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said he had brought a petition by residents of Moldova’s Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdnestria backing union with Russia.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry called the eastern referendum a criminal farce, its ballot papers “soaked in blood”. One official said two-thirds of the territory had not participated.
Ballot papers in the referendum in the regions of Donetsk, which has declared itself a “People’s Republic”, and the much smaller Luhansk, were printed without security provision, voter registration was patchy and there was confusion over what the vote was for. (Reuters)