EU extends sanctions against Russians over Ukraine

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/european-union-sanctions-russians-ukraine

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The European Union has released the names of another 15 people it is targeting for sanctions because of their roles in the Ukraine crisis.

The list includes General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff and first deputy defence minister, and Lieutenant General Igor Sergun, identified as the head of GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.

The decision taken by EU governments' ambassadors in Brussels brings the total number of Russians and pro-Russian individuals in Ukraine targeted by sanctions to 48.

Any bank accounts or other economic assets the sanctioned individuals hold in EU member countries are supposed to be frozen, and they will no longer be allowed to travel to the EU's 28 member states.

The move comes after the US decided to broaden its sanctions to include seven Russian government officials and 17 companies with links to Vladimir Putin.

The EU's top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, announced the measure in a statement expressing alarm at the "downward spiral of violence and intimidation" in Ukraine.

Russia's foreign ministry protested that the EU action showed "a complete misunderstanding of the political situation" in Ukraine, and called it "an open invitation to local neo-Nazis to continue creating lawlessness and extrajudicial killings against the civilian population of the south-east".

In east Ukraine, negotiations to free seven international mediators held by rebels continued.

Demonstrators stormed a government building in Luhansk, seizing control of a key site in one of the largest cities in Ukraine's east.

About 1,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the building, and 150 people – some masked and wielding baseball bats – broke out of the crowd and charged in without resistance. Protesters formed a corridor allowing police to leave the building.

Pro-Russians are in control of police stations and other government buildings in at least 10 cities and towns. The demonstrators are seeking at the very least a referendum on granting greater authority to Ukraine's regions. Ukraine's parliament in Kiev on Tuesday discussed the possibility of holding a national referendum on whether the country should remain a united state or a loose federation that allows the regions more powers. However, no consensus was reached on how a referendum would be phrased or when it could be held.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops in areas near the Ukrainian border, feeding concerns that Moscow aims to use unrest in the east as a pretext for invasion.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which employs the seven observers detained in eastern Ukraine, said it was pressing ahead with plans to recruit hundreds more monitors for a civilian mission.

A vacancy notice for an extra 400 monitors was issued this month, and a spokeswoman said the recruitment process was ongoing.