Expressing alarm at the lethal escalation of political violence in Ukraine, the European Union and the United States scrambled for a quick response Wednesday, threatening punitive sanctions against senior figures in the Ukrainian government. The Obama administration later said it had placed 20 top Ukrainian officials on a visa blacklist.European diplomats and senior officials in Brussels began working on the logistics of imposing sanctions, in preparation for an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers called for Thursday.They also announced that the French, German and Polish foreign ministers would visit Kiev beforehand, to meet with members of the government and the opposition.
In Washington, the State Department said it had imposed a visa ban on 20 senior Ukrainian officials, whom it accused of playing a role in the government’s crackdown. The State Department declined to say which officials were on the blacklist, which prevents them from traveling to the United States, but a senior State Department official said, “the list today includes the full chain of command responsible for ordering the violence last night.”
The
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if the
violence continued, the United States, working with the European Union,
would impose sanctions against Ukrainian officials “in a much broader
and deeper way.”
While
this official said there were no signs of military involvement in the
crackdown on Tuesday night, American officials were closely monitoring a
“changing of the guard” at military barracks on Wednesday, saying it
raised concerns that troops could be yet mobilized.
Earlier
Wednesday Secretary of State John Kerry, who was visiting Paris for
meetings on the Middle East, had also warned that the United States
might join a European sanctions response to the Ukraine crisis. “We are
talking about the possibility of sanctions or other steps with our
friends in Europe and elsewhere,” Mr. Kerry said in a joint appearance
in Paris with the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius.
President
François Hollande of France, speaking at a joint news conference with
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany after a regularly scheduled meeting
in Paris, said, “There are unspeakable, unacceptable, intolerable acts
being carried out in Ukraine.”
Ms.
Merkel, condemning the “shocking pictures which are reaching us from
Ukraine,” made plain that sanctions would be applied against those
responsible for the violence. E.U. foreign ministers have only to decide
“which specific sanctions should be applied,” she said.
“But
sanctions alone are not enough,” she added. “We have to get the
political process going again,” including both government and opposition
representatives.
She
added that the French and German foreign ministers and top officials
were using every available channel, including to Russia, to defuse the
crisis.
Mr.
Kerry said the purpose of his warning to Ukraine was to “create the
environment for compromise,” and that United States did not think it was
too late for Ukraine’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, to negotiate
with the opposition.
“President
Yanukovych has the opportunity to make a choice,” Mr. Kerry said. “Our
desire is for Mr. Yanukovych to bring people together, dialogue with the
opposition, find the measure of compromise and put the broad interests
of the people of Ukraine out front.”
Obama
administration officials have said in recent weeks that the United
States was prepared to move ahead with sanctions if Mr. Yanukovych
cracked down on the opposition. American officials signaled on Wednesday
morning that sanctions were under consideration.
Poland’s
foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in a telephone interview en
route to Kiev that “we will impose some sanctions tomorrow in Brussels.”
But
Mr. Sikorski said it was unclear whether sanctions would be imposed on
Mr. Yanukovych himself. “After all, he’s still the democratically
elected president, large numbers voted for him and he still controls the
situation, though he’s made a complete mess of it,” Mr. Sikorski said.
Prime
Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said earlier that he would make the case
for immediate measures against those who provoked the escalation that
has left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.
“We
Poles will not remain indifferent to these events, because we know that
the developments in Ukraine will decide the history and the future of
the whole region, and thus also influences the future and the security
of Poland,” said Mr. Tusk, who held an emergency cabinet meeting late
Tuesday as events unfurled in Kiev.
The
imposition of so-called smart sanctions is a standard foreign policy
reflex of the European Union when confronted by acts of violence. Over
the years, officials have honed a system for identifying individuals
deemed responsible for repression, usually imposing a travel ban
preventing visits to the 28-nation European Union and often freezing
bank accounts.
Experts
debate their effectiveness when applied to countries like Zimbabwe, but
their likely use in this case underlines the extent to which the bloc’s
efforts to use its influence in its own neighborhood have faltered.
Nevertheless,
they appear highly likely to be introduced, José Manuel Barroso, the
president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation
bloc, having also said he expects targeted measures against those
responsible for violence.
Elmar
Brok, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign
Affairs, called for sanctions against specific individuals responsible
for the violence. “This is not the time for news releases,” he told a
news conference in Brussels. “We don’t call for sanctions against
Ukraine but against certain responsible people.”
Mr.
Brok suggested a travel ban on leadership figures and measures to
investigate the bank accounts held by individuals in countries such as
Germany, the Netherlands and Britain.
He
was speaking alongside Ruslana Lyzhychko, a Ukrainian pop singer and
protest leader, who said she would go on hunger strike if such sanctions
were not introduced.
If
officials and diplomats decided on Wednesday and Thursday to go ahead
with sanctions against individuals, they would be agreed formally by
European foreign ministers at their emergency meeting Thursday. Any list
of those targeted would normally be made public only when published in
the European Union’s Official Journal, which puts sanctions into legal
effect. The earliest that is likely would be Friday. The system is
designed to avoid giving warning to those whose bank accounts are about
to be frozen.
The
German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also issued a warning
to the Ukrainian government. “Whoever is responsible for the decisions
which have led to the bloodshed in Kiev and other parts of Ukraine
should expect Europe to reconsider its position on imposing sanctions on
individuals,” Mr. Steinmeier said in a statement, as lethal mayhem
engulfed the center of Kiev Tuesday night.
Hours
earlier, Mr. Steinmeier telephoned his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid
Kozhara, urging an end to violence. The clashes in Kiev erupted only
hours after Mr. Steinmeier, who has repeatedly and bluntly urged the
Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their promises to the opposition, had
received the two main opposition leaders, Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy
P. Yatsenyuk, in Berlin, where they also met Ms. Merkel for more than an
hour. As those meetings were held, Russia made the surprise
announcement that it would lend Ukraine the next $2 billion worth of
assistance in a $15 billion package that Mr. Yanukovych signed with the
Kremlin in December, but which Moscow suspended when the Kiev protests
did not abate.
The
unusually high-level reception accorded the opposition leaders by
Berlin showed how closely Germany has been tracking Ukraine’s crisis,
but also illustrated how little leverage Europe’s most powerful economy
has had as the tug of war between Russia and the West has unfolded over
Ukraine.
Alexander
Kwasniewski, the former Polish president who has been European
Parliament’s special envoy to Ukraine and visited dozens of times in the
past year, called the events in Kiev a “Ukrainian Tiananmen,” alluding
to the 1989 Chinese military crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen
Square in which hundreds were killed.
In
comments to Poland’s RMF radio, reported by the German news agency DPA,
Mr. Kwasniewski also acknowledged that Europe was relatively powerless
to influence events. “One can’t do much to stop the bloodshed,” he said.
“Diplomatic acts are like a howl in the desert.”
“I
fear the thin red line has been crossed,” the former Polish president
added, saying that the worst of all situations had now arisen, “where
the government does not want to negotiate and the opposition does not
have the strength to control all the action.”
The New York Times
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