Secretary of State John Kerry will fly to London to meet with his Russian counterpart in a 11th-hour effort to persuade the Kremlin not to move forward with the annexation of Crimea.
Interesting and loaded language from NYT's- There is after all going to be a referendum. Would it really be an annexation? Or would it be the right of the people of Crimea to choose?And Kerry & co are allegedly all about the will of the people? Right? NYT's moves away from manipulative devices in the next paragraph
Mr. Kerry’s meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, will come on Friday, just two days before a Sunday referendum in Crimea in which the region is to decide whether to become part of Russia.
From my reading the referendum is a foregone conclusion- The populace will vote in a way the US will not accept.
Mr. Kerry announced the meeting with Mr. Lavrov in testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations.
Under questioning, Mr. Kerry asserted that the United States and its partners were prepared to impose tough sanctions if Russia moved to annex Crimea. “It can get ugly fast if the wrong choices are made, and it can get ugly in multiple directions,” he said. “Our hope is that there is a way to have a reasonable outcome here.”
Well I can think of a reasonable outcome. Go back to the transitional government that was agreed to prior to the NATO backed overthrow of the elected leadership. That is the request Russia has been making all along, stick to deals already made. As for the Crimea? They will have more autonomy then ever before.