The administration of President Barack Obama has announced plans for providing Ukraine with an aid package of $1 billion as tensions continue to rise between Russia and the US over the crisis there.
The White House says it will work with Congress to provide the money to Ukraine’s new government following the ouster of the country’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Congress has said it will begin working on the aid package next week.
“The new Ukrainian government has inherited an economy with enormous potential but that is currently financially fragile and uncompetitive,” the Obama administration said in a statement.
“The Government of Ukraine has said publicly that it will work to meet these urgent challenges. As the government implements important reforms, the United States will work with its bilateral and multilateral partners to ensure that Ukraine has sufficient financing to restore financial stability and return to growth,” it added.
This comes as Russia has denounced Ukrainian opposition’s power grab as a coup and noted that Yanukovych remains the legal president of the country as tensions between Washington and Moscow continue to rise over the crisis in Ukraine.
Speaking to media in a news conference at his residence outside the capital Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Tuesday the Ukrainian people’s call for change but censured recent developments in neighboring Ukraine as unconstitutional and a coup, saying changing the status quo illegally could not be encouraged and endorsed.
US officials have threatened Russia with economic sanctions over the deployment of troops in Ukraine’s Crimea region. A US official who was travelling with Secretary of State John Kerry to Ukraine said on Tuesday that “there will be movement on sanctions very likely later in this week and there is a whole spectrum of sanctions.”
Putin said on Tuesday that the uniformed armed people without insignia who are in Crimea are not Russian soldiers but members of the Crimean self-defense forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also warned that threats of sanctions against Russia will backfire, saying “I hope our partners understand that such actions are counter-productive.”
ISH/ISH
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