EU Threatens Sanctions Against Russia

European Union leaders are to discuss sanctions against Russia ahead of an emergency summit meeting, the French foreign minister said today, as the west hardened its position towards Moscow.

When asked what measures the west could take against Russia in the crisis over Georgia, Bernard Kouchner told a press conference in Paris: "Sanctions are being considered."

He gave no details, but the fact that sanctions are on the cards reflects increasing western impatience at Moscow after its brief invasion of Georgia and its recognition of independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, tetchily dismissed the idea of sanctions as the product of a "sick imagination".

"…My friend Kouchner also said that we will soon attack Moldova and Ukraine and the Crimea ... But that is a sick imagination and probably that applies to sanctions as well," Lavrov told reporters at a security meeting in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "I think it is a demonstration of complete confusion."

France, which brokered a ceasefire between Russia and Georgia, has called an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Monday, to discuss the most serious rupture between Russia and the west since the end of the cold war.

In its own diplomatic manoeuvrings, Russia received tepid support from its allies on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security group that includes China. After a meeting in Dushanbe, attended by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, the group conspicuously failed to back Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"The SCO states express grave concern in connection with the recent tensions around the South Ossetian issue and urge the sides to solve existing problems peacefully, through dialogue, and to make efforts facilitating reconciliation and talks," the final declaration said.

Britain said it did not accept the division of Europe into spheres of influence, as it kept the diplomatic pressure on Russia. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said such concepts were an "anathema" belonging to the second world war era of Yalta, and rejected the argument that Nato was an offensive alliance seeking to encircle Russia.

The 1945 agreement at the Yalta conference, between the leaders of Britain, the US and the Soviet Union, saw the allied powers accept that eastern Europe fell into Moscow's sphere of influence.

Miliband's comments on BBC Radio 4's Today programme followed a tough statement signed by himself, the foreign ministers of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, deploring Moscow's "excessive use of military force" in Georgia.

The statement, described as an "unprecedented step" by the Foreign Office, followed a warning from Miliband delivered in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, that he bore a "big responsibility" not to provoke a new cold war.

The foreign ministers said Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia violated Georgia's integrity and sovereignty.

"We ... condemn the action of our fellow G8 member. Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia violates the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia and is contrary to UN security council resolutions supported by Russia."

He said he went to Ukraine yesterday because it was important to say to a friendly country that "we support their democratic choices". The foreign secretary reiterated Britain's support for Ukraine's wish to be in Nato if it wanted to and rebuked Russia for treating its neighbours as if they were either "enemies or vassals".

Miliband, tipped as a future Labour party leader and potential prime minister, went to Kiev, to deliver a speech aimed at flying the flag of western democracy on Russia's doorstep, while seeking to avert a new crisis boiling over on the Crimean peninsula, home to an ethnic Russian population and Moscow's Black Sea fleet.

The speech represented the strongest criticism of the Kremlin from a leading European government official in years, delivered in a country that is Russia's neighbor and which Russians view as the cradle of their civilization.

Miliband declared a turning point had been reached in Europe's relations with Russia, ending nearly two decades of relative tranquility. He said Tuesday's decision by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia represented a radical break and a moment of truth for the rest of Europe.

"[Medvedev's] unilateral attempt to redraw the map marks a moment of real significance," the foreign secretary said yesterday. "It is not just the end of the post-cold war period of growing geopolitical calm in and around Europe. It is also the moment when countries are required to set out where they stand on the significant issues of nationhood and international law."

"The Georgia crisis has provided a rude awakening," the foreign secretary said. He responded to Medvedev's boast that he was not scared of a new cold war, saying: "We don't want a new cold war. He has a big responsibility not to start one.

Ukrainian officials say Russia has been distributing passports to ethnic Russians living in Crimea, as it did in South Ossetia, and fear that a row over the use of the base may be employed to stir up separatist sentiment as a precursor to calling for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine.

Kiev is also jittery over concerns that Russia could orchestrate a conflict over its Black Sea fleet, which is based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, under a lease agreement with Ukraine.

Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, has riled Moscow by suggesting that Russia should pay a higher rent for Sevastopol and could be subject to more stringent conditions on its use. Miliband urged the Ukrainian government to "stick to the letter" of the lease agreement.