{"id":93327,"date":"2014-03-21T15:55:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T15:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=93327"},"modified":"2014-03-25T15:48:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T15:48:51","slug":"putin-cool-to-the-idea-of-further-retaliation-over-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=93327","title":{"rendered":"Putin Cool to the Idea of Further Retaliation over Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Lee Myers, Alan Cowell and Andrew Higgins — New York Times March 21, 2014<\/h1>\n

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday formally completed the annexation of Crimea, signing into law bills passed by Parliament reclaiming the contested province from Ukraine. Hours earlier, the acting prime minister of Ukraine signed a political association agreement with the European Union. The pact has been bitterly opposed by Moscow, and its rejection in November by the Ukrainian president prompted the uprising that led to his overthrow in February.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As he cemented Russian control of Crimea, Mr. Putin declared a temporary cease-fire in a tit-for-tat battle of economic and political sanctions between Moscow and the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The European Union and the United States have frozen assets and limited the travel of a number of close associates of Mr. Putin\u2019s for their part in Crimea\u2019s annexation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mr. Putin responded to the moves by barring nine American officials and legislators from Moscow. But on Friday he said he did not see the immediate need for further reprisals, while leaving open the door for more later on.<\/span><\/p>\n

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With evident sarcasm, he also said in televised remarks that he would open an account at a Russian bank targeted by the American measures, even as the first effects on the country\u2019s economy became clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Russia\u2019s stock market opened sharply lower on Friday as a second rating agency, Fitch, followed Standard & Poor\u2019s in warning that it would downgrade the country\u2019s credit rating in the wake of the punitive American response to Russia\u2019s move to annex Crimea.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Visa and MasterCard ceased operations with Bank Rossiya, the only corporation singled out on Thursday by the new sanctions because it served as a \u201cpersonal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mr. Putin, meeting with members of his national security council, suggested in televised remarks that the government was still coming to grips with the impact of the sanctions, aimed at 20 people, including senior government officials and businessmen who have grown rich since Mr. Putin came to power more than 14 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Some of those attending the meeting were among those affected, including Mr. Putin\u2019s chief of staff, Sergei B. Ivanov. \u201cWe should distance ourselves from them,\u201d Mr. Putin joked, his face showing no emotion. \u201cThey compromise us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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When Russia\u2019s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that the ministry was prepared to draft unspecified retaliatory measures, however, Mr. Putin demurred. \u201cI think we should refrain from taking steps in response for now,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mr. Putin was speaking as the upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, ratified a treaty signed this week to formally annex Crimea. The lower house, the Duma, took a similar step on Thursday and Mr. Putin was to make it final by signing the treaty later on Friday, ending a breathtaking six days of maneuvers that began with a hastily arranged referendum among Crimeans, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The formalities of Crimea\u2019s annexation came after a stealthy, audacious campaign by Russian special forces to take over military installations, effectively forcing the Ukrainian authorities to capitulate by signaling the withdrawal of their 25,000 troops and dependents from Crimea.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The agreement signed in Brussels by interim Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk was part of an earlier deal abandoned by the deposed president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, in favor of a bailout by Russia. His action helped precipitate his downfall after weeks of protests in central Kiev.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mr. Yatsenyuk signed the central part of a so-called association agreement with European Union officials and with leaders of the body\u2019s 28 nations on the fringe of their summit meeting in Brussels. While the pact allows the two sides to deepen their economic and political collaboration, more detailed elements of the deal concerning free trade will be signed only after Ukraine\u2019s presidential election, scheduled for May.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said the agreement would offer Ukrainians a \u201cEuropean way of life,\u201d and would recognize \u201cthe aspirations of the people of Ukraine to live in a country governed by values, by democracy and the rule of law, where all citizens have a stake in national prosperity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The juxtaposition of the two signing ceremonies on Friday in Brussels and Moscow, however, seemed to underscore the powerful forces pulling at Ukraine even as Western leaders seek to dissuade Russia from further advances in Russian-speaking areas in the east of Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Russia last year put heavy pressure on Mr. Yanukovych to reject the original deal, fearing that it would torpedo efforts by Mr. Putin to form a Moscow-dominated customs union made up of former Soviet lands. Moscow also worried about Ukraine, a former Soviet republic of 46 million people, moving closer to Europe on security and defense, fears that could be heightened by Friday\u2019s political accord, which calls for enhanced cooperation on foreign and security policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Steven Lee Myers reported from from Moscow, Alan Cowell from Berlin and Andrew Higgins from Brussels<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cementing Crimea’s reunification with Russia, Putin signals the opportunity for a temporary truce in the tit-for-tat exchange with the West <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93327"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93663,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93327\/revisions\/93663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}