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This is a comforting theory, which can easily become an excuse for avoiding hard decisions: If Putin is losing, why should we go to all the trouble and financial pain of, say, rallying the West to impose sanctions that bite?
Unfortunately, it misunderstands what is important to Putin.
It is true that Russians would be better off in the long run if Ukraine — and, for that matter, Russia — were to integrate economically with Europe. Russians would be better off if the Kremlin stopped trying to control its neighbors and accepted, as the West has earnestly explained for the past quarter-century, that geopolitics is no longer a zero-sum game.
But the long-term welfare of the Russian people is not Putin’s primary concern. Nor is recovering Russia’s greatness or restoring the Soviet empire, though he talks about those a lot and no doubt regards them as desirable.
Putin’s first goals are to stay in power, preserve access to Russia’s riches for himself and his inner circle and crush any democratic sprouts in Russia that might eventually force a reckoning for his misdeeds. He is an accidental leader, a former KGB agent whom Boris Yeltsin anointed as his protector in the feeble twilight of his presidency. Now, like a Mafia boss, he cannot contemplate retirement; it is rule or be ruled.
How does the past week’s scorecard look from that perspective?
We can’t know how things will end up. But consider one plausible scenario:
Crimea becomes a de facto protectorate of Russia. Western leaders, grateful that Putin has not — for now — extended his incursion further, deplore this fait accompli but do little to reverse it. Some officials are denied visas to the United States, a few meetings are canceled. In six months or a year, these sanctions are forgotten and the West welcomes Putin back to business as usual.
In the meantime, from his perspective, Putin will have accomplished quite a lot. He will have reminded NATO that extending security guarantees to former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations is not a game; the West might actually have to fight for Georgia or Moldova if it makes such a promise. The West does not want to fight Russia, and it would, after making noises about partnerships, be reluctant to expand.
He would have dismembered a third former Soviet republic (following Moldova and Georgia), all of which would now be partially controlled from Moscow. That would deliver a useful warning to nearby countries that are smaller and weaker than Ukraine, such as Armenia and Belarus.
He will have positioned himself to interfere further in Ukraine’s affairs. Ukrainians will have to keep this in mind: If the formula worked in Crimea, it may work again in the industrial, Russian-speaking east. If Putin can get away with an actual invasion, how likely is it that he can be deterred from more covert, but no less effective, manipulations of Ukraine’s upcoming elections?
At home, wielding the media that he has subjugated into tools of state propaganda, Putin will have reinforced the message that anyone who speaks out for democracy is a tool of the CIA, or a fascist Nazi agitator, or both.
To think that Crimea would be a burden assumes that Putin cares about the standard of living there. Ask the people of Abkhazia (a piece of Georgia that he oversees) or Transnistria (Moldova’s exclave) about that.
This scenario isn’t inevitable. On the one hand, Putin might go further, sooner, seeking to destabilize the new government in Ukraine by actively promoting “spontaneous” rebellions in the east.
On the other hand, it’s possible that his actions in Ukraine will hasten the day that Russians find his rule unsupportable at home. His actions have certainly pushed Ukrainians toward Europe — and ledEurope to embrace Ukraine with more aid than it was willing to extend only weeks ago.
It’s also possible that the United States will decide to lead its allies to impose a serious cost on Putin for his occupation of Crimea. That would be hard to do, though, and it certainly won’t happen if we convince ourselves that we can sit back and wait for Putin to outfox himself. Putin’s move is a blunder, in other words, only if the West helps make it so.
Read more from Fred Hiatt’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
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The immediate concern must be to show Russia that further moves will not be tolerated and that Ukraine’s territorial integrity is sacrosanct. Diplomatic isolation, asset freezes and travel bans against oligarchs are appropriate. The announcement of air defense exercises with the Baltic states and the movement of a U.S. destroyer to the Black Sea bolster our allies, as does economic help for Ukraine’s embattled leaders, who must put aside their internal divisions and govern their country.
The longer-term task is to answer Putin’s statement about Europe’s post-Cold War future. He is saying that Ukraine will never be free to make its own choices — a message meant to reverberate in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states — and that Russia has special interests it will pursue at all costs. For Putin, the Cold War ended “tragically.” He will turn the clock back as far as intimidation through military power, economic leverage and Western inaction will allow.
After Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the United States sent ships into the Black Sea, airlifted Georgian military forces from Iraq back to their home bases and sent humanitarian aid. Russia was denied its ultimate goal of overthrowing the democratically elected government, an admission made to me by the Russian foreign minister. The United States and Europe could agree on only a few actions to isolate Russia politically.
But even those modest steps did not hold. Despite Russia’s continued occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the diplomatic isolation waned and then the Obama administration’s “reset” led to an abrupt revision of plans to deploy missile defense components in the Czech Republic and Poland. Talk of Ukraine and Georgia’s future in NATO ceased. Moscow cheered.
This time has to be different. Putin is playing for the long haul, cleverly exploiting every opening he sees. So must we, practicing strategic patience if he is to be stopped. Moscow is not immune from pressure. This is not 1968, and Russia is not the Soviet Union. The Russians need foreign investment; oligarchs like traveling to Paris and London, and there are plenty of ill-gotten gains stored in bank accounts abroad; the syndicate that runs Russia cannot tolerate lower oil prices; neither can the Kremlin’s budget, which sustains subsidies toward constituencies that support Putin. Soon, North America’s bounty of oil and gas will swamp Moscow’s capacity. Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that. And Europe should finally diversify its energy supply and develop pipelines that do not run through Russia.
Many of Russia’s most productive people, particularly its well-educated youth, are alienated from the Kremlin. They know that their country should not be only an extractive industries giant. They want political and economic freedoms and the ability to innovate and create in today’s knowledge-based economy. We should reach out to Russian youth, especially students and young professionals, many of whom are studying in U.S. universities and working in Western firms. Democratic forces in Russia need to hear American support for their ambitions. They, not Putin, are Russia’s future.
Most important, the United States must restore its standing in the international community, which has been eroded by too many extended hands of friendship to our adversaries, sometimes at the expense of our friends. Continued inaction in Syria, which has strengthened Moscow’s hand in the Middle East, and signs that we are desperate for a nuclear agreement with Iran cannot be separated from Putin’s recent actions. Radically declining U.S. defense budgets signal that we no longer have the will or intention to sustain global order, as does talk of withdrawal from Afghanistan whether the security situation warrants it or not. We must not fail, as we did in Iraq, to leave behind a residual presence. Anything less than the American military’s requirement for 10,000 troops will say that we are not serious about helping to stabilize that country.
The notion that the United States could step back, lower its voice about democracy and human rights and let others lead assumed that the space we abandoned would be filled by democratic allies, friendly states and the amorphous “norms of the international community.” Instead, we have seen thevacuum being filled by extremists such as al-Qaeda reborn in Iraq and Syria; by dictators like Bashar al-Assad, who, with the support of Iran and Russia, murders his own people; by nationalist rhetoric and actions by Beijing that have prompted nationalist responses from our ally Japan; and by the likes of Vladimir Putin, who understands that hard power still matters.
These global developments have not happened in response to a muscular U.S. foreign policy: Countries are not trying to “balance” American power. They have come due to signals that we are exhausted and disinterested. The events in Ukraine should be a wake-up call to those on both sides of the aisle who believe that the United States should eschew the responsibilities of leadership. If it is not heeded, dictators and extremists across the globe will be emboldened. And we will pay a price as our interests and our values are trampled in their wake.
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"Тут уместны дипломатическая изоляция, замораживание активов и запрет на въезд олигархов", - пишет Райс.
Долгосрочная задача - дать ответ Путину. "Он говорит, что Украина никогда не будет вольна делать собственный выбор, - сигнал, призванный отозваться эхом в Восточной Европе и странах Балтии, - и что у России есть особые интересы, которые она будет отстаивать любой ценой", - говорится в статье. По мнению Райс, Путин "повернет стрелки часов" назад, насколько ему позволят военная мощь, экономические рычаги и бездействие Запада.
"Путин ведет игру с дальним прицелом, ловко эксплуатируя любую замеченную брешь. Так должны поступать и мы, практикуя стратегическое терпение, иначе его не остановить", - пишет автор. Давление возможно: Россия нуждается в зарубежных инвестициях, за границей припрятано "немало преступных доходов", "синдикат, управляющий Россией, не вынесет снижения цен на нефть", как и бюджет Кремля. В этой связи Райс дает Обаме внутриполитическую рекомендацию: "разрешить трубопровод Keystone XL и поддержать экспорт газа" из США.
По мнению автора, "украинская проблема" в отношениях Запада и России назревала уже некоторое время. Со времен Оранжевой революции США и Европа пытались убедить Россию, что Украина должна быть независимым государством, которое вольно делать собственный выбор. Но для Путина движение Киева к Западу - оскорбление России.
"Когда Владимир Путин и я находились в его кабинете на президентской даче в конце 2004 года, из смежной комнаты внезапно появился Янукович", - вспоминает экс-госсекретарь. По ее словам, Путин сказал: "Познакомьтесь с Виктором Януковичем, который баллотируется на пост президента Украины". Райс комментирует: "Путин хотел, чтобы я уяснила суть: он мой человек, Украина - наша, не забывайте об этом".
Также США должны восстановить свой статус в мире, который, по мнению Райс, "пошатнулся от того, что мы слишком часто протягивали руку дружбы нашим противникам, иногда в ущерб нашим друзьям".
"Вакуум силы" в мире заполнили экстремисты, диктаторы, национализм и "такие, как Путин, - те, кто сознает, что "жесткая сила" не утеряла своего значения".
Это не попытка "уравновесить" мощь США, а, наоборот, реакция на признаки усталости и равнодушия Америки, считает автор. События в Украине должны стать "звонком будильника" для американских политиков. Если ему не внять, диктаторы и экстремисты осмелеют, а интересы и ценности США будут растоптаны, заключает Райс.
Как сообщал MIGnews.com.ua, президент России Владимир Путин и лидеры таких стран, как США, Германия, Великобритания, Турция и Китай имеют "различия в оценках происходящего" в Украине. Так, если Путин считает нынешнее руководство Крыма "легитимным", и, соответственно, признает назначенный на 16 марта референдум, то остальные главы государств придерживаются абсолютно противоположной точки зрения.
По материалам Inopressa
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В крымском поселке Черноморское российские военные в ночь на понедельник захватили украинскую воинскую часть. Об этом написал на своей странице в Facebook глава медиа-центра Минобороны Украины в Крыму Владислав Селезнев.
"Как сообщают источники из Черноморского, минувшей ночью в 1.30 порядка 200 российских солдат на 14 грузовиках прибыли к отдельной ракетной технической части в Черноморском. Под угрозой штурма и применения оружия проникли на территорию воинской части, разоружили весь личный состав части, в том числе и караул ВОХОР. Заставили сдать оружие на склад, закрыть и опечатать его. После потребовали покинуть территорию военного городка всех военнослужащих. В данный момент в части находятся 2 украинских офицера, которые охраняют оружие. Ситуация продолжает развиваться. Есть работа для прессы", - отметил он.
Как сообщал MIGnews.com.ua, украинский самолет во время патрулирования государственной границы и приграничных районов, обнаружил многочисленные посты российских военнослужащих, расположенные вдоль Перекопского перешейка.
Российские военные сегодня ночью разоружили украинских военнослужащих отдельной ракетной технической части в поселке Черноморское на западе Крыма.
Об этом начальник Крымского медиа-центра Министерства обороны Украины Владислав Селезнев написал на своей странице в Facebook.
”В 1.30 порядка 200 российских солдат на 14 грузовиках прибыли к отдельной ракетной технической части в Черноморском. Под угрозой штурма и применения оружия проникли на территорию воинской части, разоружили весь личный состав части, в том числе и караул. Заставили сдать оружие на склад, закрыть и опечатать его”, - сообщил Селезнев.
Затем, по его данным, российские военные потребовали от украинских военнослужащих покинуть территорию военного городка.
В части остались только два украинских офицера, они охраняют оружие.
Angela Merkel and David Cameron at the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters
David Cameron and Angela Merkel have agreed that any Russian attempt to legitimise next Sunday's referendum in Crimea will result in further consequences, implying stronger sanctions.
The prime minister and the German chancellor agreed a statement after a working dinner in Hanover on Sunday night.
In what is in essence a twin-track approach, the two leaders also said they were still working to persuade the Russians to engage with a western contact group designed to start a diplomatic process in Ukraine. The referendum is seen as an attempt to annex Crimea, and the west as well as Turkey have condemned the referendum as unconstitutional and legally dubious.
EU leaders agreed at a heads of government summit last week to escalate sanctions if Russia did not start to engage in a diplomatic process in days; as yet there has been little sign of Russian willingness to seek a diplomatic outcome on the ground.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, appears in telephone conversations to be emollient but does not seem prepared to carry out his verbal commitments inside Ukraine.
Downing Street said in a statement after the dinner: "They both agreed that the priority is to de-escalate the situation and to get Russia to engage in a contact group as swiftly as possible. They reiterated their view that the proposed referendum in Crimea would be illegal and that any attempt by Russia to legitimise the result would result in further consequences. They also agreed that we must keep working to support the Ukraine government, including identifying how the international community can help to stabilise the economic situation."
On Sunday, Cameron told Putin he must do more to reduce tensions in Ukraine as he called on the Russian president to agree to the creation of a contact group that could lead to direct talks between Kiev and Moscow.
As the foreign secretary, William Hague, warned of a "great danger of a real shooting conflict" if Russian forces moved beyond Crimea to enter the main part of eastern Ukraine, the prime minister told Putin that Britain and the EU wanted to work towards a diplomatic solution.
The prime minister spoke to Putin by phone before his working dinner with Merkel.
A No 10 spokesperson said of Cameron's conversation with Putin: "The prime minister called President Putin this morning to urge him to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine and to support the formation of a contact group that could lead to direct talks between the governments of Russia and Ukraine. The PM made clear that we, along with our European and American partners, want to work with Russia to find a diplomatic solution to the situation in Ukraine, including Crimea.
"The PM emphasised that we recognise the right of all Ukrainian people to choose their future and that the elections, currently scheduled for the end of May, provide the best way to do this. The international community should work together to ensure the elections are free, fair and inclusive.
"President Putin agreed that it is in all our interests to have a stable Ukraine. He said that Russia did want to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis and that he would discuss the proposals on the contact group with Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov tomorrow.
"The PM and President Putin also discussed the serious economic challenges facing Ukraine and agreed that the international community would need to provide financial support in the months ahead. Both leaders agreed to stay in touch on the issue in the coming days."
The EU's 28 leaders agreed at their summit on Thursday that Moscow must agree to a dialogue, to be established through the contact group, with Kiev if it is to avoid a round of sanctions. It is understood that London and Berlin fear that Putin will use his current strategy – to sound reasonable in telephone conversations while Russian forces tighten their grip on Crimea – to stall any negotiations if the contact group is established. Merkel and Cameron are keen to let Putin know that they are not "naive" and have clocked his strategy.
Hague acknowledged that none of the options on the table – diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions – would be able to remove Russian forces from the Black Sea peninsula.
Asked by the BBC's Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt, what would happen if Russian troops went beyond the Black Sea peninsula to enter "mainland" eastern Ukraine, Hague said: "There would be far reaching trade, economic and financial consequences. It would bring the great danger of a real shooting conflict. There is no doubt about that."
Asked whether Britain and the EU would advise the Ukrainians not to take up arms against the Russians, Hague said: "We have commended all of their restraint so far. It is not really possible to go through different scenarios with the Ukrainians and say: in these circumstances you shoot and in these you don't. We have commended their restraint. They have not risen to any provocation from Russia."
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March 9, 2014 2:54 p.m. ET
RIGA, Latvia—Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Veshnyakov created a new wave of concern in Latvia with recent remarks saying it may soon become easier for ethnic Russians in Latvia to obtain Russian citizenship.
Mr. Veshnyakov told Latvian Radio 4, a Russian-language public broadcasting channel, that proposed legislation in Russia would allow granting Russian citizenship to ethnic Russians in Latvia to "save the Latvian noncitizens out of poverty by giving them citizenship and a pension without having to stay in Russia." Russians constitute 27.6% of Latvia's population of 2 million, the largest ethnic group among the minorities living in Latvia.
The comments come as many in the three Baltic nations—part of the former Soviet Union—have expressed fears about being the target of possible Russian expansionism. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—all members of NATO and the European Union—have been working to forge economic ties with Europe by joining the euro zone while also scrambling to lessen dependence on Russian energy.
Russia has justified its moves in Ukraine as a defense of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. Moscow has complained about Latvia's alleged mistreatment of ethnic Russians there.
The government in Moscow has approved legal changes that would radically ease the process of obtaining Russian passports for Russian speakers in other former Soviet republics.
President Barack Obama discussed the situation in Ukraine with Baltic leaders in recent days following comments made by Baltic leaders severely critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. has committed fighter jets in Lithuania to reassure allies.
Latvia's former Minister of Defense, Artis Pabriks, who referred to Mr. Veshnyakov's remarks in a tweet on his Twitter account, told The Wall Street Journal Sunday that Mr. Veshnyakov's offer of social security and pensions was unnecessary, as Russia and Latvia had signed treaties that ensured that each other's citizens would receive their pensions in either country. Mr. Pabriks suggested the Russian diplomat was apparently trying to lure or keep some Latvian residents under Russia's political influence and in the Russian "information sphere."
According to the English-language website of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the average old-age pension in February was 11,400 rubles, or $312.88 a month. In Latvia, the average old-age pension is EUR277, or $384.
Mr. Pabriks said that Mr. Veshnakov's remarks could also be seen as a slap at EU social security and living standards before an audience of poorly informed Russian speakers.
A member of Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma's Unity Party, Mr. Pabriks also said he was worried by Russia's vague promises of aid and support for "compatriots" abroad.
"What do they mean? By language, ethnicity, ancestry?" Mr. Pabriks asked, noting that this concept was being used to justify Russia's intervention in Crimea.
The Russian Ambassador spoke on Latvian radio last Friday, a few days after he said on a Latvian television Russian-language program that Russia wouldn't respond to calls by Russians in Latvia for military intervention if the situation were similar to Ukraine. "Don't fantasize. This wouldn't happen," Mr. Veshnyakov is quoted as saying.
Separately, The Russian Union of Latvia, formerly the For Human Rights in a United Latvia (PCTVL) party, which lost its place in the Latvian parliament in the 2010 elections, has called for a march in support of Crimea as part of Russia Monday in downtown Riga, which is Latvia's capitol.
In a Facebook post, the party, seen as pro-Russian, calls for an afternoon local march from the French Embassy to the German Embassy and culminating at a building housing European Union (EU) offices, called the "EU House."
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By Ben Leubsdorf
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday the military occupation of the Crimean peninsula is part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s broader goal to rebuild Soviet-era influence in Eastern Europe.
“I think it’s part of a long-term strategy on Putin’s part to recreate a Russian sphere of influence and a Russian bloc, where Russia has economic, political and security relationships with these countries that make them all lean toward or do the bidding of Moscow,” Mr. Gates said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“We saw it first in Georgia in 2008,” Mr. Gates said, adding subsequent moves by Mr. Putin have come in Armenia and Belarus. “Frankly, I don’t think that he will stop in Ukraine until there is a government in Ukraine, in Kiev, that is essentially pro-Russian.”
That does not mean Mr. Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union itself. “I don’t think that he wants to recreate the Soviet Union precisely, because he doesn’t want to have responsibility for economic basket cases like Ukraine is at the present time. What he wants is for those governments to look to Moscow and basically [be] subject to whatever Moscow wants,” said Mr. Gates, a longtime U.S. national security intelligence official who served as defense secretary from 2006 to 2011.
The U.S. should develop its own long-term strategy to counter Mr. Putin, Mr. Gates said, but sanctions under discussion, such as visa restrictions, probably won’t be much deterrent to Russia. “What we need to do is to show Russia that there are long-term consequences to this aggressive behavior on their part,” he said. “Our tactical options are pretty limited.”
Seizing Crimea is “an aggressive and illegitimate act,” Mr. Gates said.
But asked whether he thought Crimea was now “gone,” Mr. Gates responded, “I do.”
MOSCOW — Amid new reports of Russian reinforcements in Crimea, one of the region’s leaders on Sunday recommended that Ukrainian troops remaining there should “quietly and peacefully” leave the territory unless they were willing to renounce their loyalty to Kiev and serve the region’s new administration.
The remarks by Vladimir Konstantinov, a pro-Russian figure who was in Moscow on Sunday, suggested an attempt to clear roughly 3,500 Ukrainian forces from the territory after a tense, weeklong standoff. Another official, speaking to reporters in Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, announced plans to build railway bridges connecting Crimea with mainland Russia, bypassing Ukraine.
Russia, meanwhile, made clear that it planned to move forward with some form of recognition after Crimea’s referendum vote March 16 on the regional assembly’s move to secede from Ukraine.
In a conversation with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a forceful case for the legitimacy of Crimea’s referendum, telling them, “The steps taken by the legitimate leadership of Crimea are based on the norms of international law and aim to ensure the legal interests of the population of the peninsula,” according to a statement from the Kremlin on Sunday.
“Vladimir Putin also drew the attention of his interlocutors to the absence of any effort by the authorities in Kiev to limit the riot of ultranationalist and radical forces in the capital and many other regions,” the statement said. Though the leaders had different readings of the situation, it said, “There was an expression of interest in de-escalating the tension and soonest possible normalization of conditions.”
Pavel Dorokhin, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s committee on industry, said Russia had set aside 40 billion rubles, or about $1.1 billion, to rebuild Crimea’s industrial infrastructure. After the referendum, he said, Crimea may take on one of three statuses within Russia – that of a region, a territory or an autonomous republic.
“We are ready to back any of these options, with regard for the people’s opinion,” Mr. Dorokhin said, during a visit to Simferopol on Sunday, according to Interfax. Another deputy, Vladimir Bessonov, said the Duma would amend a law in the coming week to facilitate Crimea’s accession to Russia. He said it would be a “lawful process.”
“No one from abroad can tell us how to live,” he said.
On Saturday, a Ukrainian border plane was fired on near the boundary between Crimea and Russia, according to Ukrainian authorities, and witnesses reported seeing around 200 military vehicles unloaded from amphibious ships sent from Russia.
“If you don’t want to owe allegiance to the new administration, we will do everything to ensure that you quietly and peacefully leave the territory — no problem,” said Mr. Konstantinov, the chairman of Crimea’s legislature, in remarks carried by the Interfax news service. “The people are in a difficult situation; they have taken oaths. However, it is a big question who they owed allegiance to.”
He said those who stayed will become part of “new armed forces, with new regulations and new conditions of labor renumerations, years in grade and pension.” Interfax reported on Saturday that the separatist government swore in armed units that they described as “the Armed Forces of the Republic of Crimea.”
Over the weekend there were signs of a modest willingness on the part of Russia and Ukraine to seek a diplomatic resolution to the widening crisis. On Sunday, a spokesman for the European Union said she hoped for a thorough investigation into the identity of snipers who shot demonstrators in Kiev.
In Moscow, an unidentified military official told Russian news agencies that Russia was considering suspending inspections of its strategic nuclear arsenal required by arms-reduction treaties, as well as other military cooperation accords meant to build confidence and avoid confrontations.
The official said the move was justified by “baseless threats” against Russia by the United States and NATO. A suspension of the inspections would undermine a pillar of international security and expand the confrontation beyond Ukraine.
Although President Obama has made it clear that the United States does not want to escalate the Crimean crisis, the Pentagon has stepped up training operations in Poland and sent fighter jets to patrol the skies over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, three former Soviet republics with sizable populations of ethnic Russians.
Over the weekend, Mr. Obama had phone consultations about Ukraine with the French president and the British and Italian prime ministers, then had a conference call with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are NATO members.
He pledged that the United States, as a NATO ally, had an “unwavering commitment” to their defense, according to the White House’s account of the call.
In a separate phone conversation on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry warned the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, that “continued military escalation and provocation in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine, along with steps to annex Crimea to Russia, would close any available space for diplomacy,” a State Department official said.
In Kiev, Ukraine’s new foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsa, said some small progress had been made to form a “contact group” of foreign diplomats to mediate the country’s confrontation with Russia after the occupation of Crimea by Russian soldiers and local “self-defense” groups more than a week ago. Washington has sought to establish the contact group — which would include Russia, Ukraine, Britain, France and the United States — as a way to bring Moscow and Kiev to the negotiating table.
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SEPANG, Malaysia — As military aircraft and a flotilla of ships from a half-dozen nations combed the waters south of Vietnam on Sunday for signs of a jet with 239 people onboard that vanished a day earlier, the authorities here deflected troubling questions about two passengers on the flight who had used passports listed in an international database as lost or stolen.
The secretary general of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, said on Sunday that no checks had been conducted by the authorities in Malaysia or any other country about the two passports before the plane, a Boeing 777-200, left on flight MH370, which disappeared Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
In a forceful statement, Mr. Noble warned that “only a handful of countries” around the world routinely made such checks.
Security and aviation experts continued to offer starkly disparate theories on Sunday about why flight MH370 disappeared, a measure both of how little is known about its fate and of how little information the Malaysian authorities are revealing. In a series of briefings, Malaysian officials have refused to answer any questions relating to what they described as “security matters.”
The overnight flight left Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing early Saturday and disappeared from radar about one hour after takeoff. No distress signal was sent, officials have said.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, said samples from an oil slick discovered Saturday were being tested. “We are doing the verification of whether the oil comes from the aircraft or not,” he said.
Vietnamese news media reported that a yellow object that rescuers had believed might be part of the aircraft turned out to be a coral reef.
The plane was flying in apparently calm weather, and speculation on the reasons for its disappearance ranged from a rare, catastrophic mechanical failure to something more sinister.
More details emerged on Sunday about the two passengers who used the fraudulently obtained passports. Both men bought one-way tickets issued last week at the same travel agency in a shopping mall in the Thailand beach resort of Pattaya, according to electronic booking records. A woman who answered the phone at the travel agency said she was “too busy to talk.”
It is unclear how the men traveled south to Malaysia to board the flight on Saturday. In Beijing, each man was to continue on to separate European cities, according to the electronic records. As transit passengers, they would not have been required to obtain Chinese visas.
Security experts in Asia said the use of false travel documents is a persistent problem in the region, but differed on the significance of the two stolen passports to the investigation.
Xu Ke, a lecturer at the Zhejiang Police College in eastern China who studies aviation safety and hijackings and has advised the Chinese authorities, said the two men might have been illegal migrants.
“There are many cases of falsified and counterfeit passports and visas for illegal migration that our public security comes across, even several cases every day,” he said.
But Steve Vickers, the chief executive of a Hong Kong-based security consulting company that specializes in risk mitigation and corporate intelligence in Asia, said the presence of at least two travelers with stolen passports aboard a single jet was rare and a potential clue.
“It is fairly unusual to have more than one person flying on a flight with a stolen passport,” said Mr. Vickers, who publicly warned a month ago that stolen airport passes and other identity documents in Asia merited a crackdown. “The future of this investigation lies in who really checked in and what they looked like,” he added.
Mr. Azharuddin, the Malaysian civil aviation chief, said investigators were reviewing video footage of the passengers. “There are only two passengers on record that flew on this aircraft that had false passports,” he said. “And we have the CCTV recordings of those passengers from check-in bags to the departure point.” He would not provide details about what investigators saw in the footage.
Mr. Noble, the Interpol secretary general, said it was too soon to speculate about any connection between the stolen passports and the missing plane.
But, he added, “It is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases.”
Malaysian officials stressed that their priority was locating the aircraft. They said they had reviewed military radar records and raised the possibility that the aircraft had tried to turn back just before it lost contact with ground controllers on Saturday.
Rodzali Daud, the head of the Royal Malaysian Air Force, said that authorities were “baffled” by the lack of any distress signals from the aircraft but that a closer look at military radar might have indicated a deviation from the flight path.
“We looked into some of the recording on the radar that we have,” he said. “There is a possibility that there was a turn back.”
Mikael Robertsson, the co-founder and co-chairman of Flightradar24, the Stockholm-based service that tracks the majority of the world’s passenger jets, said data gathered by separate, civilian receivers in the region did not appear to show the jet turning around.
“I’m not saying it didn’t turn back, but we can’t see that,” he said.
Mr. Robertsson said a turn made by the aircraft just before it vanished from radar screens was consistent with its flight path.
Aircraft and boats from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam searched the area where Malaysian ground controllers lost contact with the plane: the maritime border between Malaysia and Vietnam.
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MOSCOW — Amid new reports of Russian reinforcements in Crimea, one of the region’s leaders on Sunday recommended that Ukrainian troops remaining there should “quietly and peacefully” leave the territory unless they were willing to renounce their loyalty to Kiev and serve the region’s new administration.
The remarks by Vladimir Konstantinov, a pro-Russian figure who was in Moscow on Sunday, suggested an attempt to clear roughly 3,500 Ukrainian forces from the territory after a tense, weeklong standoff. Another official, speaking to reporters in Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, announced plans to build railway bridges connecting Crimea with mainland Russia, bypassing Ukraine.
Russia, meanwhile, made clear that it planned to move forward with some form of recognition after Crimea’s referendum vote March 16 on the regional assembly’s move to secede from Ukraine.
In a conversation with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a forceful case for the legitimacy of Crimea’s referendum, telling them, “The steps taken by the legitimate leadership of Crimea are based on the norms of international law and aim to ensure the legal interests of the population of the peninsula,” according to a statement from the Kremlin on Sunday.
“Vladimir Putin also drew the attention of his interlocutors to the absence of any effort by the authorities in Kiev to limit the riot of ultranationalist and radical forces in the capital and many other regions,” the statement said. Though the leaders had different readings of the situation, it said, “There was an expression of interest in de-escalating the tension and soonest possible normalization of conditions.”
Pavel Dorokhin, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s committee on industry, said Russia had set aside 40 billion rubles, or about $1.1 billion, to rebuild Crimea’s industrial infrastructure. After the referendum, he said, Crimea may take on one of three statuses within Russia – that of a region, a territory or an autonomous republic.
“We are ready to back any of these options, with regard for the people’s opinion,” Mr. Dorokhin said, during a visit to Simferopol on Sunday, according to Interfax. Another deputy, Vladimir Bessonov, said the Duma would amend a law in the coming week to facilitate Crimea’s accession to Russia. He said it would be a “lawful process.”
“No one from abroad can tell us how to live,” he said.
On Saturday, a Ukrainian border plane was fired on near the boundary between Crimea and Russia, according to Ukrainian authorities, and witnesses reported seeing around 200 military vehicles unloaded from amphibious ships sent from Russia.
“If you don’t want to owe allegiance to the new administration, we will do everything to ensure that you quietly and peacefully leave the territory — no problem,” said Mr. Konstantinov, the chairman of Crimea’s legislature, in remarks carried by the Interfax news service. “The people are in a difficult situation; they have taken oaths. However, it is a big question who they owed allegiance to.”
He said those who stayed will become part of “new armed forces, with new regulations and new conditions of labor renumerations, years in grade and pension.” Interfax reported on Saturday that the separatist government swore in armed units that they described as “the Armed Forces of the Republic of Crimea.”
Over the weekend there were signs of a modest willingness on the part of Russia and Ukraine to seek a diplomatic resolution to the widening crisis. On Sunday, a spokesman for the European Union said she hoped for a thorough investigation into the identity of snipers who shot demonstrators in Kiev.
In Moscow, an unidentified military official told Russian news agencies that Russia was considering suspending inspections of its strategic nuclear arsenal required by arms-reduction treaties, as well as other military cooperation accords meant to build confidence and avoid confrontations.
The official said the move was justified by “baseless threats” against Russia by the United States and NATO. A suspension of the inspections would undermine a pillar of international security and expand the confrontation beyond Ukraine.
Although President Obama has made it clear that the United States does not want to escalate the Crimean crisis, the Pentagon has stepped up training operations in Poland and sent fighter jets to patrol the skies over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, three former Soviet republics with sizable populations of ethnic Russians.
Over the weekend, Mr. Obama had phone consultations about Ukraine with the French president and the British and Italian prime ministers, then had a conference call with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are NATO members.
He pledged that the United States, as a NATO ally, had an “unwavering commitment” to their defense, according to the White House’s account of the call.
In a separate phone conversation on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry warned the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, that “continued military escalation and provocation in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine, along with steps to annex Crimea to Russia, would close any available space for diplomacy,” a State Department official said.
In Kiev, Ukraine’s new foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsa, said some small progress had been made to form a “contact group” of foreign diplomats to mediate the country’s confrontation with Russia after the occupation of Crimea by Russian soldiers and local “self-defense” groups more than a week ago. Washington has sought to establish the contact group — which would include Russia, Ukraine, Britain, France and the United States — as a way to bring Moscow and Kiev to the negotiating table.
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Former secretary of defense Robert Gates predicted Sunday that any hope of Ukraine holding on to control of Crimea is gone and that Russia will seize control of the area.
"I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia's hands," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
You think Crimea's gone?" asked host Chris Wallace.
"I do," responded Gates.
As Russian forces have tightened their grip over the region, Crimea has set a referendum for next Sunday to decide whether to join Russia. The United States has said it will not recognize such a move.
Gates said "there really aren't any direct military options" for the U.S. with regard to the situation in Ukraine.
