Top Russian lawmakers on Friday welcomed the prospect of Crimea joining the country, despite stiffening sanctions on Moscow over the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
The heads of Russia’s two Houses of Parliament said they would respect a decision by lawmakers in Ukraine’s majority-Russian peninsula to renounce ties with Kiev and stage a March 16 referendum on switching over to Kremlin rule. “Should the people of Crimea decide to join Russia in a referendum, we... will unquestionably back this choice,” said speaker of the Upper House Valentina Maviyenko. “We will respect the historic choice of the people of Crimea,” said her lower house counterpart Sergei Naryshkin.
The escalating threat of the ex-Soviet nation of 46 million splintering between its pro-European west and more Russified southeast prompted US President Barack Obama to place an hour-long call to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin for its part said Putin tried to calm tensions by stressing that US-Russian relations “should not be sacrificed due to disagreements over individual — albeit extremely significant — international problems”. The European Union earlier firmed its resolve to impose stiff sanctions on Russia while also vowing to sign an historic trade pact aimed at pulling Kiev out of Moscow’s orbit before Ukraine holds snap presidential polls on May 25.