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The European Union suspended talks with Russia on a wide-ranging economic pact and a visa
agreement Thursday in response to its military incursion into Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula,
threatening tougher sanctions unless Moscow swiftly defuses the crisis.
The moves at an emergency EU summit came on the heels of visa and financial sanctions
the Obama administration imposed on Russians and Ukrainians over the military incursion
into Crimea. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said further
measures could include travel bans, asset freezes and the cancellation of an EU-Russia
summit if Moscow does not quickly end its aggression and joins meaningful, multilateral
talks within days to halt the crisis. "We are in close coordination with the United
States on this," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "We cannot go back to business
as usual" with Russia, she added. However, the EU's latest sanctions appeared
weak compared to the U.S. ones and to what some more hawkish EU countries wanted, particularly
those bordering Russia. Poland's leader noted the resistance to penalizing Moscow remains
fairly high among some members of the 28-nation bloc because of Europe's close proximity,
energy dependence and trade ties to Russia. As the EU leaders met, the U.S. also sent
six F-15 fighter jets to Lithuania to bolster air patrols over the Baltics, and a U.S. warship
is now in the Black Sea to participate in long-planned exercises.
The sanctions on both sides of the Atlantic aimed to rein in Europe's gravest geopolitical
crisis in a generation, which developed swiftly again Thursday with Crimean lawmakers declaring
their intention to split from Ukraine and join Russia instead and scheduling a referendum
in 10 days for voters to decide the fate of the disputed peninsula.
Visiting the summit, Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk branded the referendum illegitimate.
"Crimea was, is, and will be an integral part of Ukraine," he told reporters.
In Washington, President Barack Obama said the referendum would violate international
law.