MOSCOW:
Russia vowed on Monday to unveil its own solution to the Ukrainian
crisis that would run counter to US efforts and would appear to leave
room for Crimea to switch over to Kremlin rule.
The unexpected
announcement came as Ukraine's new pro-European leaders raced to rally
Western support in the face of the seizure by Kremlin-backed forces of
the strategic Black Sea peninsula and plans to hold a Sunday referendum
on switching Crimea's allegiance from Kiev to Moscow.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin's threat to invade Ukraine after a wave of
deadly protests toppled a pro-Kremlin regime last month has set off the
most explosive crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.
US
President Barack Obama and his European allies are urging Russia to
call its troops in Crimea back to their barracks and launch immediate
negotiations with the new Ukrainian leadership, which Putin claims rose
to power thanks to an "unconstitutional coup".
Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin in a televised meeting Monday that
proposals he had received from US Secretary of State John Kerry on
resolving the standoff "do not suit us very much" and were "framed as if
there exists a conflict between Russia and Ukraine."
He said Russia had prepared a series of counter-proposals that would "take into account the interests of all Ukrainians".
Lavrov
said Washington was basing its solution on a recognition of Kiev's new
leaders while Russia still considered the ousted Viktor Yanukovych as
the legitimate president of Ukraine.
But Lavrov gave no indication about when or where Russia's proposals would be made public.
Putin backs Crimea referendum:
Putin
added new urgency to the standoff on Sunday by telling German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron that
he fully backed the actions being taken by the self-declared rulers of
Crimea -- in power since an end-of-February seizure of the government by
pro-Kremlin gunmen.
The Kremlin said Putin stressed "the steps
undertaken by the legitimate authorities of Crimea are based on the
norms of international law" a comment strongly hinting that Moscow was
ready to annex Crimea after handing the peninsula to Ukraine as a "gift"
when it was a part of the Soviet empire in 1954.
Merkel whose
cautious approach to imposing sanctions on Moscow has clashed with the
more hawkish positions of eastern European nations and Washington
bluntly responded that the Crimean referendum was "illegal."
US
ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt told reporters in Kiev on Monday that
Washington "is not prepared to recognise any result of the so-called
referendum".
The public vote will ask the predominantly ethnic
Russian population to choose between swearing allegiance to Moscow and
declaring greater autonomy from Kiev while remaining a part of Ukraine.
Ukraine's
interim Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya said that if Crimea's
leaders "want more rights and authority, then we are ready to do this."
The
country's interim Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh meanwhile said the
nation's army already on full combat alert had launched training
exercises aimed at evaluating how the heavily outnumbered force could
resist an offensive from its nuclear-armed neighbour.
The
diplomatic wrangling continued as Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk prepared to fly to the United States to meet Obama and address
the UN Security Council.
His first meeting with the US leader on
Wednesday should add credibility to Yatsenyuk's untested government and
provide Ukraine with a chance to iron out the details of crucial
economic relief for its struggling economy.
The White House said
Obama will discuss an economic support package that has already seen
Washington pledge a quick infusion of more than $1 billion and the
European Union promise to issue 11 billion euros ($15 billion) over two
years.
Kiev says it needs about 25 billion euros ($35 billion)
through 2015 to keep the country running after Russia froze a
$15-billion bailout it promised Yanukovych as his reward for rejecting
an EU trade deal in November that initially sparked the protests.
Split between Russia and China:
The
escalating crisis has seen Obama vow to impose travel bans and asset
freezes on Russian officials held responsible for endangering the
territorial integrity of Ukraine.
US officials have stressed that
Putin himself is not on that list but have also warned that Washington
could pull out of a G8 summit the Russian leader is hosting in Sochi in
June.
The European Union for its part has halted visa talks and
threatened to impose tough economic sanctions unless Putin quickly opens
talks with Kiev.
The UN Security Council later on Monday will
hold another meeting on Ukraine amid a rare but potentially significant
split between allies China and Russia.
Beijing on Sunday affirmed
its support for the "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Ukraine a
stance that appears to signal that its own concerns about separatist
movements in China outweigh the importance of preserving a united front
with Russia on foreign affairs.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
on Monday warned against "provocative rhetoric and hasty actions" as he
appealed for dialogue on Ukraine.
In a separate development, NATO
announced it would deploy reconnaissance flights over Poland and Romania
to monitor the crisis in Ukraine.
Crimea's separatist government
said on Monday it had invited the Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the referendum even while
keeping the group's military observers from entering the region at
gunpoint.
The European security body said it did not recognise the
invitation as valid because it had not come from an OSCE members state
but only an autonomous region of Ukraine.
