President Obama has warned Russia against making any further incursions into the Ukraine but has not made any decisions on further sanctions as Russian troops have taken control of the last Ukrainian naval vessel.
In summing up their (the US and the EU’s) actions at this point, Obama said, “What we’re doing now is at a very technical level examining the impacts of each of these sanctions. Some particular sanctions will hurt some countries more than others. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors. Not out of strength but out of weakness.”
However, he was clear in saying that any further military action on Obama’s part will be a bad choice and would definitely result in more sanctions.
Obama was very forthcoming in saying that while these disruptive effects would be global, Russia would feel the impact of these new measures the most.
Until now, sanctions that have been imposed on Russia have been targeted against certain individuals yet this could spread to entire segments of the economy such as arms sales and energy.
However, in Crimea, Ukrainian troops are leaving the peninsula by the numbers as Russia has already annexed Crimea so far by taking not only the warship Kostyantyn Olshanskiy as well as the Cherkasy trawler. In fact, both ships in particular, have been barricaded by Russian ships.
Both pro-Kremlin and Russian troops are in control of all of Ukraine’s military bases in Crimea with three major assaults being conducted in the last three days itself.