Les USA promettent d'obliger la Russie à rendre la Crimée à l'Ukraine

Washington n'abandonnera pas ses efforts visant à faire revenir la Crimée au sein de l'Ukraine, a affirmé la sous-secrétaire d'Etat américaine, chargée de l'Europe et de l'Asie.

Russian return to G7 'unimaginable' for now (Angela Merkel)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said May 21 a return of Russia to the Group of Seven major industrialised democracies was "unimaginable" as long as it flouts international law in Ukraine.

Russia's Putin Defends Annexation of Crimea. (Putin referred to Crimea as Russia's spiritual ground)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his country's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and accused the West of using the Ukraine crisis as a pretext to impose sanctions on Moscow.

European parliamentary assembly invites banned Russia to presidential committee session (Sergei Naryshkin)

“I received an invitation from Ms. Brasseur (PACE president) to attend a session of the PACE Presidential Committee due in Paris,” said State Duma lower house of parliament Speaker Sergei Naryshkin...

MOSCOW, August 08. /ITAR-TASS/. Four months after its delegation was silenced at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Russia top parliamentarian said on Friday he had been invited to a meeting of the group's presidential committee in Paris in September.

Canada to deploy military supplies, equipment to Ukraine (CTV News)

 Amid ongoing violence in eastern Ukraine and concerns about Russia’s military build-up along the border, Ottawa is set to deploy a Hercules transport plane loaded with military supplies to the troubled region, CTV News has learned.

The supplies will not include ammunition, but equipment to support Ukrainian troops on the ground. The deployment on Thursday is expected to be the first in a series of flights.

News of the military shipment comes as Canada announced additional sanctions and travel bans against Russian and Ukrainian individuals and groups.

Germany scraps arms deal with Russia.

BERLIN: Germany has stopped a major deal to provide a fully equipped training camp to Russian forces due to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the government said Monday (Aug 4).
Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has withdrawn his authorisation for the training camp project, which had already been put on hold in March due to Moscow's "indefensible" annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, his spokesman said.

The spokesman confirmed a report in the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung citing a document including the decision to scrap the 100-million-euro (US$140-million) contract.
Russia previously called the decision to halt the arms deal "unconstructive", accusing Berlin of acting under pressure from the United States.

Russian Euphoria Over Annexation of Crimea Fading

MOSCOW —When she was asked to give up a day's pay to help Crimea, Russian hospital therapist Tatyana could not hide her anger - why should she subsidize others when struggling to make ends meet herself?
Living in southern Russia close to the border with Ukraine, Tatyana was caught up in the euphoria that gripped the nation when Russia annexed Crimea in March and still welcomes “our” people back in the fold.
But more than three months on, she is worried that her wage of 9,000 roubles ($260) a month is not stretching as far as it used to, and fears she will be forced to take on extra work to cover the rising cost of food and utilities.

Bulgarian Parliament foreign committee condemns sanctions against Russia

The foreign affairs committee of the Bulgarian National Assembly passed on May 8 a motion condemning further economic sanctions against Russia, but the odds of the motion passing on the floor of Parliament were low.

The motion in committee was backed by the socialists and ultra-nationalists Ataka. The latter has emerged in recent months as the political party most supportive of Kremlin’s actions in the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, condemning the ousting of president Viktor Yanukovich and welcoming the Russian annexation of Crimea.

NATO to treat Russia "more as adversary than partner"

BRUSSELS -- Russia's "annexation of Crimea and its apparent manipulation of unrest in eastern Ukraine have fundamentally changed the NATO-Russia relationship."

This is according to Deputy Secretary-General of the western military alliance Alexander Vershbow.
NATO will have to treat Russia more as an adversary rather than a partner, he was quoted as saying.

Japan joins US, Europe by imposing visa bans on 23 Russians

Japan imposed visa bans on 23 people on Tuesday as it followed the United States and the European Union in announcing expanded sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Moscow has already denounced what it called "Cold War" tactics for the new US and EU sanctions imposed on Russian and Ukrainian allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Europe looking seriously at sectoral sanctions on Russia

European leaders were giving more consideration to broad sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy after pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine held monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a US official said.
"We have noticed a distinct uptick in the last three days from major European capitals in continuing to look very hard at sectoral (sanctions) in response to the egregious treatment of the ... monitors in Slaviansk," a US official told reporters.

White House defends Russia foreign policy, amid criticism Putin goes undeterred

The White House on Sunday defended its foreign policy strategy on Russia, saying the international sanctions are hurting that country’s economy and has Russian citizens losing faith in President Vladimir Putin.

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said Russia’s financial markets are down 22 percent since the first of the year and that the ruble, Russia’s currency, hovers near all-time lows.

Putin acknowledges Russian military serviceman were in Crimea. --Never planned any military actions in Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Russian troops were present in Crimea before the referendum and argued that was necessary to let Crimeans make the choice on the future of the region.
The armed men in military uniform without insignia, dubbed “the little green men” or “the polite people,” who were present in Crimea before and during the referendum there, were Russian troops, Vladimir Putin acknowledged speaking at a Q&A session with on Thursday. The president said he never concealed the fact from his foreign counterparts, and explained to them that it was the only way to ensure the referendum on the region’s status would be carried out peacefully.

Nataša Vučković says she and another DS official voted in favor of "the (PACE) resolution on Ukraine" because they thought it was "in the interest of Serbia."

Vučković is one of seven Serbian delegates - members of the country's outgoing parliament - to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Last week, they all abstained from voting on a proposed resolution on the situation in Ukraine, but the next day three of them, Vučković included, voted in favor of another document that suspended Russia's voting rights until the end of the year.

Vučković told a news conference in Belgrade on Monday that she fellow DS MP Vesna Marjanović "thought it was in the interest of Serbia."

"Anything that supports the preservation of territorial integrity is in the interest of Serbia," said she.

PACE passes a draft resolution depriving the Russian delegation to vote until year’s end

Τhe move came definitely in a bid to punish Russia for its incorporation of Crimea, the deputy head of the Russian delegation to PACE says


The PACE Monitoring Committee has passed a draft resolution depriving the Russian delegation of its right to vote at the Assembly until year’s end for Russia’s incorporation of Crimea, Leonid Slutskiy, the deputy head of the Russian delegation to PACE and the head of the Russian State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, told journalists on Tuesday.

Moldovan president says Ukraine lost Crimea because of inefficiency of its army

Crimea was lost to Ukraine because of poor military efficiency of its army, Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti said on Sunday.

“Ukraine has lost Crimea because of the inability of its army to provide a quick reaction,” the Moldovan Publica television channel quotes him as saying at a meeting with Moldova’s top officers on the occasion of the appointment Valeriu Troenco as the country’s new Defence Minister. “The Moldovan army also faces numerous problems and the authorities must spare no efforts to overcome them.”

Russia Says No Intention of Invading Ukraine

Russia's foreign minister says Moscow has no plans to send troops across the border into Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state television on Saturday that Moscow had absolutely no intention of and interest in crossing Ukraine's borders after the seizure of Crimea.

The remarks came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin called U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss a U.S. proposal for resolving the crisis in Ukraine. U.S. officials say the de-escalation proposal was fully coordinated with the Ukrainian govern

Russia agrees to turn over some weapons to Ukraine. - No specifics were given on quantities, types of hardware or timing.

MOSCOW: Russia's foreign ministry on Friday alleged that ethnic minorities in Ukraine are living in fear after the ouster of the country's president and the coming to power of interim authorities that include right-wing nationalists.

The statement by the ministry was in line with Russia's frequent contention that Ukraine's large ethnic Russian community faces repression under the new government that Moscow characterizes as fascist.

The ministry statement raises the stakes on the issue, saying that ethnic Germans, Hungarians and Czechs in Ukraine also feel themselves in peril.

Austrian and Serbian presidents on sanctions against Russia

A statement issued in Vienna by the office of the Austrian president said that the two leaders told a joint news conference that "sanctions are a sharp instrument that must be handled very carefully, and that must first be well considered."
Fischer, whose country is a member of the European Union, was also quoted as saying that "introducing certain sanctions is, unfortunately, easier than lifting them later," and adding:

"In that sense, the long-term perspective must remain for different nations in Europe and on the borders toward Europe, to, peacefully and with mutual trust, live together and cooperate economically with as few obstacles and possible."

Russia slams Germany for halting arms deal over Crimea

MOSCOW: Russia's Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov on Sunday said Germany's decision to halt a major arms deal over Moscow's takeover of Crimea was "unconstructive" and taken under pressure from the United States.

Berlin on Wednesday blocked German defence group Rheinmetall from proceeding with a 100-million-euro (US$140-million) contract to build a training camp for Russian forces, saying any military deals in the current context would be "indefensible".