Two years ago, on March 6, 2014, the leadership of the European Union, including EU Council President Herman van Rompuy, announced that the EU would sign the political portion of its Association Agreement with Ukraine before the May 25 presidential election in Ukraine, and that the signing of the free trade pact would be delayed. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk met with European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Brussels to coordinate EU measures against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Mr. Rompuy declared that the EU was halting its negotiations with the Russian government on visa liberalization for its citizens.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that same day that Germany would freeze the bank accounts of Russian officials in Germany should they fail to de-escalate the military aggression in Crimea.
Also on March 6, U.S. officials announced travel bans against both Russian and Ukrainian officials “responsible for or involved in encroachments upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” President Barack Obama issued an executive order to provide the legal basis for imposing sanctions against individuals and entities that have violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Similar denouncements against Russia’s actions in Crimea were issued by the leaders of the U.K., Poland, Canada, the G-7, as well as the North Atlantic Council.
Ukrainian Americans and other European ethnic groups gathered on March 6 in front of the White House to protest against Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea.
However, all of these measures were generally ineffective against the Kremlin and its satellite government that was installed in Crimea the previous week. On March 6, the Crimean Parliament voted to leave the Ukrainian state and join the Russian Federation as well as to move the referendum date that was originally scheduled for May 25 to March 16.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Mr. Yatsenyuk and acting President Oleksander Turchynov on March 4 in Kyiv. Mr. Kerry announced an immediate $1 billion loan guarantee to support Ukraine’s recovery and stated at his press conference: “[The Russian government] would have you believe that Kyiv is trying to destabilize Crimea, or that Russian actions are legal or legitimate because Crimean leaders invited intervention. And as everybody knows, the soldiers in Crimea, at the instruction of their government, have stood their ground but never fired a shot, never issued one provocation, have been surrounded by an invading group of troops and have seen an individual [Crimean President Sergey Aksyonov] who got 3 percent of the vote installed as the so-called leader by the Russians.”
Source: “European Union and U.S. try to address conflict in Ukraine, EU says it will sign Association Agreement with Kyiv before May 25,” by Zenon Zawada, The Ukrainian Weekly, March 9, 2014.