West readies Ukraine sanctions

(Agencies) Updated: 2014-02-20 11:03

EU WEIGHS SANCTIONS

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the 28-nation EU, at an emergency meeting on Thursday, would impose asset freezes and visa bans on those blamed for the bloodshed.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Paris, said Washington was ready to impose similar sanctions.

The European Investment Bank, the EU's soft-loan arm, said it had frozen its activities in Ukraine due to the violence.

The leaders of Germany and France said after talks in Paris that the sanctions were only part of an approach to promote a compromise leading to constitutional reform and elections.

"What is happening in Ukraine is unspeakable, unacceptable, intolerable," French President Francois Hollande told a joint news conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said targeted sanctions against Ukraine's leaders would show the EU was serious in pressing for a political solution. She made clear they were talking to all sides in the crisis, including Russia.

Merkel said she and Putin had spoken by phone and agreed to do everything to avoid an escalation of violence.

Diplomats cautioned that any sanctions would be largely symbolic, noting that similar Western measures had long failed to sway or unseat the rulers of Belarus or Zimbabwe.

In staunchly pro-European western Ukraine, opponents of Yanukovich declared political autonomy after seizing regional administrative buildings in Lviv overnight and forcing police to surrender. Protesters also took over regional offices in Ivano-Frankivsk, blocked a road to a border crossing to Poland and torched the main police station in the city of Ternopil.

Many in the west, parts of which were first ruled from Moscow in World War Two, view Yanukovich as a corrupt ally of Russia and of business oligarchs in the Russian-speaking east.

STANDOFF

On the central Kiev square, opposition speakers harangued thousands of protesters, some masked and in combat fatigues.

Priests intoned prayers from a stage, while young protesters in hard-hats improvised knee and arm pads to protect themselves against baton blows. Others prepared petrol bombs.

"They can come in their thousands, but we will not give in. We simply don't have anywhere to go. We will stay until victory and will hold the Maidan until the end," said a 44-year-old from Ternopil who gave only his first name of Volodymyr.

Traffic entering Kiev were restricted, and the capital's metro was closed to prevent protesters getting reinforcements.

Demonstrations erupted in November after Yanukovich bowed to Russian pressure and pulled out of a planned far-reaching association agreement with Brussels. Western powers urged him to turn back to the EU and the prospect of an IMF-supported economic recovery, while Russia accused them of meddling.

Ukraine has been rocked periodically by political turmoil since independence from the Soviet Union more than 22 years ago, but it has never experienced violence on this scale.