The US and Germany today warned that Washington and Brussels will impose sanctions on Russia’s energy, banking or other sectors if tensions in eastern Ukraine hamper elections planned for 25 May.
However, US President Barack Obama said that even more severe sanctions will not attempt to cut off all Russian oil and gas exports.
Obama, joined by German chancellor Angela Merkel in the White House Rose Garden, said “the next step is going to be a broader-based sectoral sactions” if Russia does not help ease tensions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Obama tried to rein in expectations of what sectoral sanctions might look like, noting that energy shipments from Russia to Europe continued even at the height of the Cold War.
“The idea that you are going to turn off the tap on all Russian oil or natural gas exports, I think, is unrealistic,” Obama said.
Merkel, through an interpreter, pointed to six EU members that depend on Russia for 100pc of their gas supplies. “We need to improve the reverse flow,” Merkel said. “We need to improve our grid of pipelines.”
If Ukraine tensions impede planned 25 May elections in Ukraine, “we will not have a choice but to move forward with additional, more severe sanctions,” Obama said.
Asked about the timing of a decision on additional measures, Merkel pointed to an EU foreign ministers meeting scheduled for 12 May that “is going to play a very important role in this respect.”
Officials have been consulting for several weeks, but some members of the EU “are more vulnerable than others to potential Russian retaliation,” Obama said. “We have to take that into account.”
The US on 28 April imposed sanctions on Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin and board member Sergey Chemezov, as Washington and its European allies crank up pressure on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine.
The US stopped short of imposing sanctions on Rosneft itself. Obama said broader sanctions affecting sectors such as energy, banking or defense are being held back for the next phase “should the situation escalate further.”
Sechin is the former Russian deputy prime minister and once served as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff. Chemezov is director general of Russia’s state-owned tech giant Rostec and once lived in the same East German apartment complex as Putin.
The US Treasury Department also targeted five other senior Russian government leaders, as well as 17 entities associated with already-sanctioned Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko, construction executives Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, and Bank Rossiya.
The EU imposed travel restrictions and asset freezes on 15 individuals.
di/dcb/fn
Send comments to feedback@argusmedia.com
If you would like to review other ArgusMedia.com content options, request more information about Argus’ energy news, data and analysis services.
Copyright © 2014 Argus Media Ltd - www.ArgusMedia.com - All rights reserved.
