Obama to Putin: US to Impose Additional Costs for Ukraine

Local Editor

US President Barack Obama told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Sunday that the United States rejected the results of a referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region and warned that Washington was ready to impose sanctions on Moscow over the crisis.

"He (Obama) emphasized that Russia's actions were in violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and that, in coordination with our European partners, we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions," the White House said in a statement.

Obama told Putin the crisis could still be resolved diplomatically, but said the Russian military would need to first stop its "incursions" into Ukraine, the White House said.

Just two weeks after Russian troops seized their peninsula, Crimeans voted Sunday to leave Ukraine and join Russia, overwhelmingly approving a referendum that sought to unite the strategically important Black Sea region with the country it was part of for some 250 years.

The vote was widely condemned by Western leaders, who planned to move swiftly to punish Russia with economic sanctions.

Ukraine's new government in Kiev called the referendum a "circus" directed at gunpoint by Moscow, referring to the thousands of troops that now occupy the peninsula, which has traded hands repeatedly since ancient times.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team