Meeting of Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers
The Guardian's Julian Borger has been sketching out the scene today in the Hague, where he says that the Dutch hosts have sought to move away from their tendency at previous summits of playing up the supposedly quirky, unconventional nature of their country.
He also writes that Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, had told journalists that he looked forward to meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for the first time to talk peace and maybe even have a vodka together. Julian adds:
Within half an hour, half his wish was granted. A picture was issued by the Russian foreign minister showing the two men staring grimly across a bare white table, with small flags, white flowers and mineral water between them. No vodka and, going by the body language, no closer to peace, either.
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Ukraine hopes for UN resolution
Ukraine is hoping the UN General Assembly will adopt a resolution later this week reaffirming the country's unity and territorial integrity and underscoring that the referendum that led to Crimea's annexation by Russia "has no validity."
The draft resolution, circulated Monday to the 193 assembly members and obtained by the Associated Press (AP), never mentions Russia by name but calls on all countries not to recognize "any alteration of the status" of Crimea.
AP reports:
[The draft resolution] also urges all parties to pursue a peaceful resolution of the situation in Ukraine, "refrain from unilateral actions and inflammatory rhetoric that may increase tensions, and to engage fully with international mediation efforts."The General Assembly's resolutions are not legally binding but they reflect world opinion, and Ukraine will be looking for a strong "yes" vote to show Russia's international isolation.The U.N.'s most powerful body, the Security Council, has been blocked from taking any action because Russia, has veto power as one of its five permanent members. Even so, the 15-member council has held eight meetings on Ukraine, as Western powers strive to keep up the pressure on Moscow.
The Guardian's Richard Norton Taylor has written a critique of the call by General (now Lord) Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, for western diplomacy to be backed up by greater military capability.
Richard writes that British generals, past and present, are deeply unhappy about the government's decision to cut the regular army by 20%, from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020.
He suggests, however:
You can read the piece in full here.A threat of deploying British soldiers against Russian forces (500 are being sent on a Nato exercise in the Baltic) may be a slightly more realistic deterrent than a Trident long-range nuclear ballistic missile, but it will not help to prevent more violent ethnic disputes along the national state borders of central and eastern Europe. Far from it.
As always, the diplomacy is likely to continue over dinner. Willem-Alexander, is hosting 53 world leaders who have been taking part in the Nuclear Security Summit.
Despite the G7's serious criticism of Russia, and their threat of imposing damaging economic sanctions, opportunities for communication remain open. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is among those attending.
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Commentators have digesting the (by now widely circulated) G7 declaration and its potential consequences.
Mark Knoller, White House Correspondent at CBS News, sums up what he believes to be its grim significance:
The G-7 Declaration offers the feel that the Cold War is back.— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) March 24, 2014
Matt Lee, diplomatic writer at the Associated Press, suggests that Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, won't be displeased about the statement, which is called after the Dutch city where G7 leaders had been meeting. He also recalls a 1994 political agreement seeking to provide assurances relating to Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
The Hague Declaration! British foreign secretary secretly chuffed. But will this more or less respected than The Budapest Memorandum?— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) March 24, 2014
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The British foreign Secretary, William Hague, has described the cancellation of the G8 meeting this year as "a huge blow" and suggested that it would be hard to revive the relationship with Russia.
He said:
It would need our values to be clear, our shared values to be clear again, and clearly those shared values are not shared by Russia in violating the independence and territorial integrity of a neighbouring nation state.
This is the G7 this year and we will see how long it takes to change that in the future.
Hague also highlighted the focus on energy issues as potentially "changing the balance of leverage between Russia and the European Union" and acknowledged that tougher sanctions would mean "many countries bear the cost of that in many ways" but "we have to be prepared to do that". He added:
Every country would have to do what is necessary if more far-reaching sanctions were applied, accepting that that would affect different economies in different ways.The United Kingdom is certainly prepared to do that. There is nothing that other countries in Europe have proposed that we have blocked. The United Kingdom is fully prepared to play its full part.
The declaration's final point backs financial support to the faltering economy of Ukraine, saying:
The International Monetary Fund has a central role leading the international effort to support Ukrainian reform, lessening Ukraine’s economic vulnerabilities, and better integrating the country as a market economy in the multilateral system.We strongly support the IMF’s work with the Ukrainian authorities and urge them to reach a rapid conclusion. IMF support will be critical in unlocking additional assistance from the World Bank, other international financial institutions, the EU, and bilateral sources.We remain united in our commitment to provide strong financial backing to Ukraine, to coordinate our technical assistance and to provide assistance in other areas, including measures to enhance trade and strengthen energy security.
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However, that point is followed by the G7's formal announcement that it issuspending participation in the G8 until..
.. Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G-8 is able to have a meaningful discussion and will meet again in G-7 format at the same time as planned, in June 2014, in Brussels, to discuss the broad agenda we have together. We have also advised our Foreign Ministers not to attend the April meeting in Moscow.In addition, we have decided that G-7 Energy Ministers will meet to discuss ways to strengthen our collective energy security.
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The G7's 'Hague Declaration' does make some attempt to reach out to Russia. In point five of the eight-point statement, it says that Russia's support for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine is "a step in the right direction."
It adds:
We look forward to the mission’s early deployment, in order to facilitate the dialogue on the ground, reduce tensions and promote normalization of the situation, and we call on all parties to ensure that Special Monitoring Mission members have safe and secure access throughout Ukraine to fulfill their mandate.
A US official has told Reuters that Russian intervention into southern or eastern Ukraine would be the clearest trigger for additional sanctions, or violence in Crimea.
G7 issue "Hague Declaration"
A joint statement, which is being called "The Hague Declaration", has been released by G7 leaders (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.
It reaffirms G7 support for Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence and warns that Russia's actions will have "significant consequences".
It adds of Russia's actions:
This clear violation of international law is a serious challenge to the rule of law around the world and should be a concern for all nations. In response to Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to demonstrate our determination to respond to these illegal actions, individually and collectively we have imposed a variety of sanctions against Russia and those individuals and entities responsible. We remain ready to intensify actions including coordinated sectoral sanctions that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation.
You can read the full text here at the European Commission's website. Here's a pic of the statement (via a tweet from Time political reporter Zeke Miller) as it looks:
BREAKING: The G7 statement, titled "THE HAGUE DECLARATION" pic.twitter.com/ROB8qNDQKc— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 24, 2014
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Diplomatic sources speaking on behalf of G7 leaders have been providing further briefings, telling Reuters that G7 leaders "remain ready to intensify action against Russia, including taking "coordinated sanctions".
Russia shrugs off G7 threats
Russia's foreign minister has been shrugging off the threat of exclusion from meetings of the world's largest industrial countries and the suspension of the G8, saying that Moscow was "not clinging to" membership of what he described as an informal group.
Sergei Lavrov was speaking minutes after his first meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Deshchytsia, at the margins of the global nuclear security summit in The Hague, from where my colleague Julian Borger has sent this report.
Lavrov said that he would maintain contacts with the authorities in Kiev, but gave no sign of any breakthrough in the impasse over the future of Crimea.
He drew a comparison between Crimea and Kosovo and asked whether the west wanted "blood to [be] shed" in the same way.
Western diplomats said they expected a joint statement leaders from the G7 industrialised countries, dissolving the G8 group, which has provided a forum for contacts between the western industrialised world and Russia since 1998.
However, Lavrov presented the threat as insignificant, saying:
The G8 is an informal club, with no formal membership, so no one can be expelled from it....Its raison d'etre was for deliberations between western industrialised countries and Russia, but there are other fora for that now … so if our western partners say there is no future for that format, then so be it. We are not clinging to that format.
This is Ben Quinn taking over the blog now.
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Summary
Here's a roundup of the latest developments around Ukraine, Crimea and Russia:
• Ukraine has withdrawn all its troops from Crimea, after Russia launched another attack on a military base there. Reports saidRussian troops used helicopters and stun grenades to take over theFeodosia naval base. The Ukrainian defence ministry said between 60 and 80 marines were captured by the Russians. Russia says its flag is now flying over 189 military institutions in Crimea.
• The G7 leaders, meeting in the Hague, have said this year's G8 meeting – to be held in Sochi in June – is cancelled, in the wake of what the White House called Russia's "flagrant" violation of international law. The G7 leaders are meeting to discuss the possible permanent expulsion of Russia from the Group of Eight.
• Russia has banned 13 Canadians from entering its territory, in a retaliatory move following Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper's visit to Kiev at the weekend. One, Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland, said "it's an honour to be on Putin's sanction list".
• Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has met US secretary of stateJohn Kerry in the Hague, on the fringes of the Nuclear Security Summit attended by world leaders.
— MFA Russia (@mfa_russia) March 24, 2014
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov left @NSS2014 in the Hague during the speech by UA's FM @AndriiDesh Not good prognostic for dialogue & deescalation— Marcin Wojciechowski (@maw75) March 24, 2014
Karzai backs Russian annexation of Crimea
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has backed Russia's annexation of Crimea, saying a much-criticised referendum on its future reflected its people's "free will" to decide their future, reports Emma Graham-Harrison:
It was an unexpected move from a man who has little stake in Ukraine's future, spent years fighting to evict Soviet forces from his own country, and now leads a democracy funded largely by the western nations that have slapped sanctions on Moscow.However, Karzai has always been keen to counter accusations that he is a foreign puppet, and more recently has been at odds with the United States over everything from air strikes and the forthcoming presidential election to the recent release of dozens of prisoners captured by foreign troops.He may also be looking to strengthen regional ties, at a time when western interest in Afghanistan is fading and with it the funds the government needs to pay the army and keep the country running.
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Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has inspected military bases in Crimea today, the most senior Russian official to visit the region since it was annexed by Moscow, Reuters reports:
Shoigu, one of President Vladimir Putin's longest serving ministers and closest allies, was shown by Russian television station NTV meeting with Ukrainian officers who defected to the side of pro-Russian local authorities."The most important thing is that there not be any interim period when there is an absence of authority so that military hardware does not fall into the wrong hands," Shoigu told military commanders.
One of the 13 Canadians on the sanctions list issued today by Russia isChrystia Freeland, Liberal MP for Toronto Central, who was previously a reporter working in Ukraine the Financial Times, Washington Post, and The Economist; and the FT's Moscow bureau chief. She has now been banned from entering Russia.
Love Russ lang/culture, loved my yrs in Moscow; but it's an honour to be on Putin's sanction list, esp in company of friends Cotler & Grod— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) March 24, 2014
Grod is Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
Cotler is Irwin Cotler, another Liberal MP.
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More on the cancellation of this summer's G8 meeting in Sochi, as the G7 leaders meet in the Hague to discuss the possible expulsion of Russia from the Group of Eight.
The White House has said that, as long as Russia continues "flagrantly" to violate international law, "there is no need for it to engage with the G7".
David Cameron, who earlier announced that the June meeting would not take place, told reporters:
We should be clear there's not going to be a G8 summit this year in Russia. That's absolutely clear.Russia needs to change course. We need to send a very clear message to President Putin that it would be completely unacceptable to send more troops into Ukraine.
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