BLOOMBERG
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The seizure of the inspectors added urgency to the U.S.-EU push for speedy sanctions, already driven by Russian military exercises on Ukraine’s frontiers.
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EU Discussions
Representatives of the 28 European Union nations will also meet tomorrow to widen a list of people subject to asset freezes and travel bans, an official from the bloc said yesterday. The sanctions will target 15 Russians in positions of power, another diplomat said. Both asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“I have the impression” that the European Union will extend visa bans and asset freezes to “maybe another 15 people” over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said in an interview on ZDF television. The EU ministers this week may also discuss economic sanctions on Russia, he said.
‘Threatening’ Maneuvers
Russia has escalated tensions in Ukraine with “threatening” military maneuvers and by “taking no concrete steps” to implement an April 17 accord aimed at calming the crisis, the Group of Seven nations -- the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan -- said in a statement two days ago.
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In the wake of those capital outflows and a credit-rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s, Russia’s central bank unexpectedly raised its key interest rate to 7.5 percent on April 25. The ruble has lost almost 9 percent this year against the dollar, the second-worst performance among 24 emerging currencies tracked by Bloomberg after Argentina’s peso.
Bank Rossiya
Sanctions previously imposed by the U.S., the EU, Canada and other allies were aimed at a number of Putin’s associates and top officials, as well as St. Petersburg-based OAO Bank Rossiya.
Sechin may be among those facing travel bans and asset freezes tomorrow, according to a U.S. official familiar with the situation. Executives at OAO Gazprombank, Russia’s third-largest lender, are preparing for possible sanctions, two people with knowledge of the deliberations said last week, while development lender Vnesheconombank is taking precautionary measures, according to a person familiar with talks at the lender.
U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, called on President Barack Obama’s administration to impose sanctions on four of Russia’s largest banks and OAO Gazprom (OGZD), the country’s gas-export monopoly.
‘Shock Waves’
“Hitting four of the largest banks there would send shock waves through the economy,” Corker said on CBS. “I just think we need to hit him much more toughly,” he said of Putin.
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“It’s going to be more effective if everybody signs on and everybody’s committed,” Obama told a news conference today in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The planned EU moves are not set to include broader trade, financial and economic measures against Russia, known as “stage three” sanctions. Hague said work on those is continuing.
Slovyansk Talks
Meanwhile, pro-Russian separatists freed one international observer from a group of 11 taken captive two days ago in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk. Negotiators for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe left the city following the release of the observer, a Swedish officer who is diabetic, RIA Novosti reported.
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The captured observers included four Germans and citizens of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and Sweden, according to the Vienna-based OSCE, which didn’t comment on today’s reported release.
A separatist military commander, Igor Strelkov, was cited by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying the group might have been engaged in espionage on behalf of Ukraine’s military under the cover of diplomatic immunity,
‘Treated Well’
Television pictures broadcast from Slovyansk today showed a man identified as Axel Schneider, one of the Germans in the OSCE team, telling reporters he was being ‘treated well under the circumstances” and the monitors were “guests of the mayor” rather than prisoners.
“We do look to Russia to assist with their release and to lobby and persuade and insist to those groups that have held the OSCE monitors that they should be released immediately,” Hague said.
RIA cited Strelkov as saying three officers from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, had also been seized near Slovyansk and might be swapped for rebels held by Ukraine.
Russia is “undertaking measures” to resolve the situation, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a statement. The Ukrainian government, which hosted the observers, bears full responsibility for their safety, it said.