The crisis in Ukraine heated up with another hostage situation
this weekend, the shooting of an elected official this morning,
ongoing riots, and President Barack Obama’s announcement of a new
set of sanctions against Russian government officials and cronies
for not fulfilling its promise to “de-escalate” the situation.
“So long as Russia continues down a path of provocation rather
than trying to resolve this issue peacefully and de-escalate it,
there are going to be consequences and those consequences will
continue to grow,” Obama said yesterday. He also wagged his finger
at the Putin administration for idling while “thugs,” pro-Russian
separatists,
took hostage a team of eight Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers.
The Hill
reports:
The penalties will hit seven Russian government officials,
including two members of Putin’s “inner circle,” according to White
House press secretary Jay Carney. The Treasury Department will also
freeze the assets of 17 companies linked to Putin….The Department of Commerce will also impose new restrictions on
13 of the companies in a bid to prevent the export of U.S.
manufacturing to them.
The European Union and G7 nations are imposing similar
sanctions.
The Moscow Times
notes that “so far, the sanctions imposed on Russia are not
game-changers for foreign companies” doing business in the country,
though Russia’s economy is pretty awful anyway: “Downgrading
Russia’s credit rating on Friday to BBB-, one notch above junk
status, Standard and Poor’s said $51 billion of capital had fled
the country in the first quarter, almost as much as the $57 billion
average annual outflow over the last five years.”
The U.S. and Russia are also flexing military muscle over the
situation. Russia is in the midst of previously unplanned
naval exercises in the Caspian Sea while
contingents of American paratroopers exercise in NATO allies
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
In spite of all this posturing, Ukraine’s turmoil continues. The
mayor of Kharkiv, a separatist-occupied city near the Russian
border, is in critical
condition after being shot by an unknown gunman today.
Pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian protesters are taking place in
another contested city, Donetsk, today as well. There are few
details yet, but Radio Free Europe reports
at least 15 injured. Watch some of what happened below:
Read more Reason coverage of Ukraine here.
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