Putin signs statute to complete absorption of Crimea into Russia
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PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin completed the process of absorbing Crimea into Russia yesterday, signing the Black Sea peninsula into the country just as Ukraine itself sealed a deal pulling the country closer into Europe’s orbit.
Putin said he saw no need to further retaliate against US sanctions, a newly conciliatory tone apparently aiming to contain one of the worst crises in Russia’s relations with the West since the Cold War. But his spokesman later kept the Kremlin’s warning open that it could study various options.
At Ukrainian bases on the peninsula, troops hesitated, besieged by Russian forces and awaiting orders. Russia claimed some had already switched sides and agreed to join the Russian military. Yesterday had been the deadline for Ukrainian troops to leave Crimea, join the Russian military or demobilize.
Putin hailed the incorporation of Crimea into Russia as a “remarkable event” before he signed the parliament bills into law yesterday in the Kremlin. He also ordered fireworks in Moscow and Crimea.
At nearly the same time in a ceremony in Brussels, Ukraine’s new prime minister pulled his nation closer to Europe by signing a political association agreement with the European Union. It was the same deal that touched off Ukraine’s political crisis, the deal that President Viktor Yanukovych rejected in November, igniting the months of protests that drove him from office and sent him fleeing to Russia.
“Russia decided to actually impose a new post-Cold War order and revise the results of the Second World War,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in Brussels. “The best way to contain Russia is to impose real economic leverage over them.”
US President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered a second round of sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Putin’s inner circle and a major bank supporting them.
Moscow retaliated by banning nine US officials and lawmakers from entering Russia, but Putin indicated that Russia would likely refrain from curtailing cooperation in areas such as Afghanistan.
Putin tried to play down the sanctions’ toll on Russia at yesterday’s televised session of the presidential Security Council.
“We should keep our distance from those people who compromise us,” he said, a jocular reference to the officials on the sanctions list.
Putin added sardonically that he would open an account to keep his salary in the targeted Bank Rossiya, a private bank that is owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, seen as Putin’s friend and banker.
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