WASHINGTON — As the Russian invasion of Ukraine advanced Sunday and hundreds of armed men surrounded a military base in Crimea, Secretary of State John Kerry all but ruled out a US military response.
Kerry scolded Russian President Vladimir Putin for sending troops into Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and threatened “very serious repercussions,” such as economic and trade sanctions by international organizations.
“It is a very serious moment but it is serious not in the context … of Russia-US. It is serious in terms of sort of the modern manner with which nations are going to resolve problems,” Kerry said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Kerry’s diplomacy bellied events on the ground.
Unidentified troops pulled up to the Ukrainian military base at Perevalne on the Crimean Peninsula in a convoy that included at least 13 trucks and four armored vehicles with mounted machine guns.
The trucks carried 30 soldiers each and had Russian license plates.
A dozen Ukrainian soldiers, some with clips in their rifles, parked a tank at the base’s gate, leaving the two sides in a tense standoff.
In Kiev, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk blasted Russia for invading and warned that “we are on the brink of disaster.”
Meanwhile, Kerry fanned out across TV talk shows on ABC, CBS and NBC to strongly urge Putin to withdraw Russian troops that invaded Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula a day earlier, calling it a “brazen act of aggression.”
“You just don’t in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext,” he said.
Kerry repeatedly reminded Americans that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not a challenge to the United States but to the world.
Ukraine has been in the throes of political upheaval since its parliament ousted the Russia-allied president Feb. 22.
Since then, pro-Russian demonstrators have rallied in Crimea and engaged in bloody confrontations with supporters of the new government in Kiev.
The country is racked by economic despair and suffers deep divisions between eastern and southern regions that favor historic rule by Russia and those in western Ukraine who want new ties with the European Union.
In Moscow, thousands marched Sunday in a pro-invasion rally one day after Russia’s parliament gave Putin a green light to use military force in Ukraine.
At least 10,000 people bearing Russian flags marched freely through the city, while dozens of people demonstrating on Red Square against an invasion of Ukraine were quickly detained by Russian riot police.
Kerry said that President Obama, who spent 90 minutes on the phone with Putin Saturday, kept “all options on the table” for a US response.
But Kerry stressed that Obama preferred working with international institutions, such as the United Nations and NATO, to slap economic sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t pull back.
“We think it is very important for the international entities, the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe], the UN, NATO, [NATO’s] North Atlantic Council, the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which will meet tomorrow, all need to weigh in and I believe they will weigh in heavily,” said Kerry on ABC’s “This Week.”
He said that Obama told Putin that the US recognizes that Russia has “legitimate concerns” about its interests in the Crimean peninsula, where Russia has a major naval base on the Black Sea.
“Nobody has threatened those Russian interests,” said Kerry. “We are prepared to stand up against any hooligans, any thuggery … and allow the people of Ukraine to make their choices for the future,” he said.
Kerry acknowledged that Putin had not yet heeded Obama’s warnings, saying that it was still early in the diplomatic process.
“They just had the conversation yesterday,” he said. “We are going to continue to engage diplomatically. This is a time for diplomacy. And we will engage diplomatically as much as we can in order to steer this away from an increase in the tension in the level of the crisis.”
“The most important thing to remember here is this is not or should not be East-West, Russia-United States, Russia versus Europe. This is about the people of Ukraine,” said Kerry.