John Bolton has pointed out several times that economic sanctions will be just a pinprick. If he’s right, I’m sure Putin isn’t even blinking that this:
BLOOMBERG – The U.S. and Ukraine pressed Russia to cancel or postpone a March 16 referendum that would allow it to annex Crimea, warning that Western powers will exact an economic toll if Russia doesn’t back off.
U.S. President Barack Obama called for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to at least agree not to follow through on a ballot result allowing Russia to absorb the Black Sea peninsula, saying unless he pulls back, the U.S. and its allies “will be forced to apply a cost to Russia’s violations of international law and its encroachments on Ukraine.”
With the approach of the referendum in Crimea on reuniting with Russia, Obama and U.S. allies in Europe are ratcheting up the threat of sanctions if Putin doesn’t take steps to defuse the situation. It’s the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
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Obama also signaled the U.S. may not oppose negotiations with the government in Kiev on “different arrangements” for the autonomous region of Crimea in the future. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet in London tomorrow with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to seek a way forward.
Sanctions could “get ugly fast if the wrong choices are made,” Kerry said at a congressional hearing in Washington yesterday. “And it can get ugly in multiple directions.”
The U.S. and other members of the Group of Seven industrialized countries said in a statement yesterday that a Russian annexation of Crimea “could have grave implications.”
While the U.S. has moved some military assets into the region, the main pressure point on Russia is economic.