An 11th-hour bid by Secretary of State John Kerry to ease the escalating crisis over the Kremlin's intervention in Crimea ended inconclusively on Friday, with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V Lavrov, declaring that Russia and the West have "no common vision" about the events that led to the impasse.
In a more positive vein, Lavrov also said that Russia "does not have any plans to invade Eastern or Southern Ukraine," despite the build-up of Russian forces in regions along the Ukrainian border that has raised fears in Ukraine and beyond that an invasion could be imminent.
Lavrov held firm to Russia's positions throughout the crisis, denouncing the ouster of Viktor F Yanukovych as a coup, refusing to recognise the new government, opposing the creation of a "contact group" and reiterating Crimea's right to self-determination.
"We don't have a common vision of the situation," Lavrov said during his appearance after the talks, which he nonetheless called helpful in clarifying the seemingly intractable positions. "Our differences remain."
Lavrov refused to say whether Russia would move to recognise Crimea as an independent state or to absorb it as a region of the Russian Federation. Instead, he repeated President Vladimir V Putin's pledge to "respect the choice" of voters in a referendum on secession on Sunday, after which Russia would announce its next steps. "It makes no sense to speculate at this point," he said. "We'll just have to wait and see."
He brushed aside the threats of sanctions and other punitive measures made by President Obama and European leaders, saying that Kerry "made no threats regarding Russia." He said the sanctions that have been widely discussed by officials and reported in the news media would be "a counterproductive instrument."
"This will definitely not help our mutual interest," he said.
Asked why other countries did not support Crimea's desire for independence, he replied that they treated efforts to declare independence case by case. "If Kosovo is a special case, then Crimea is also a special case," he said.
Putin spoke by telephone with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, the Kremlin said in a statement, and emphasised that the decision to hold the referendum on Crimea's status "fully complies with international law and the United Nations Charter." Western nations have called the referendum illegal.
Before the meeting, Western officials said they believed there was little chance of delaying the referendum in Crimea, but they said there might yet be an opportunity to negotiate a political resolution if Russia would refrain from taking the next step of formally annexing Crimea.
In Washington, President Obama again warned Russia against further escalation. "We continue to hope for a diplomatic outcome," he told reporters even as Kerry and Lavrov were meeting. But he added, "there will be consequences" if Ukraine's sovereignty is violated.
As of Friday, there had been no sign that President Vladimir V Putin was prepared to take the "off ramp" that the Obama administration has repeatedly offered. The Kremlin provided no hint of flexibility in a paper it sent to the State Department on Monday night that argued that Crimea's secession from Ukraine would be as legitimate as Kosovo's independence from Serbia, which the US supported.
And in a new episode of muscle flexing, Putin ordered a snap exercise involving thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders this week.
Even as Russia announced additional military exercises, including flights by fighter jets in the Mediterranean, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow blamed the new authorities in Kiev for losing control of the country and reiterated Putin's vow to defend Russian "compatriots" in Ukraine.
The ministry's statement, released on its website, cited violence during competing rallies in the eastern city of Donetsk on Thursday night that left one person dead and many others injured. The ministry attributed the violence to "right-wing groups" that supported the government in Kiev, though reports from witnesses and even footage on state television suggested that pro-Russian protesters had attacked their rivals.
"Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under protection," the ministry's statement said.
One Western official, who asked not to be named because he was discussing intelligence reports, said," It is clearly political coercion, at a minimum."
In Kiev, meanwhile, a senior United Nations official said the body planned to send monitors throughout Ukraine, including Crimea, to investigate reports of human rights violations.
"Warning signs about systemic human rights violations were neglected for many years, including the concerns and recommendations of international human rights bodies," said Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary for human rights. "There are serious concerns about the weakness of rule of law institutions, lack of accountability and ensuing impunity for human rights violations. Reports of torture and ill-treatment are also numerous."
Adding to the worries are reports that large numbers of Russians are being bused to the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk so that they can agitate against the new Ukrainian government under the supervision of Russian intelligence officers, the Western official said.
A major question for the United States and its partners is whether Mr. Putin's strategy is limited to protecting Russian interests in Crimea or is the first move in a broader campaign to undermine Ukraine's new government and weaken its authority over the eastern portion of the country.
The outlines of the sort of political settlement the United States is seeking emerged on Wednesday when President Obama and Ukraine's interim prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, suggested that they would be willing to support expanded autonomy for Crimea if Russia were prepared to reverse its military intervention. Mr. Yatsenyuk also said his government would affirm an agreement that permits Russia to maintain a naval base there.
"We are going to present within the context of a unified, sovereign Ukraine the best offer for de-escalation that the Ukrainian people can accept and see if Russia is prepared to take that off ramp," the State Department official said.
American officials said that United States and European sanctions against Russia would be promulgated early next week if the referendum takes place on Sunday, and that more economic sanctions would be imposed if Russia escalates the conflict.
In Kiev, a bipartisan delegation of eight United States senators led by John McCain, a Republican of Arizona, and an Illinois Democrat, Richard Durbin, came to Independence Square, the site of the protests, to show support for the interim government. They laid flowers on a barricade turned into a memorial and toured Instituska Street, where many protesters were killed in clashes last month.
"It's pretty sobering to come here," said Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican. "I saw the bullet holes in the lamp posts. It speaks to the great determination of the Ukrainian people. And that determination will be needed in the coming weeks and months."
©2014 The New York Times News Service
