Obama to Russia: You’re not fooling anybody

President Barack Obama AP FILE PHOTO

KIEV—US President Barack Obama said Russia was not “fooling anybody” over the Ukraine crisis after it denied its forces were operating in Crimea, as US Secretary of State John Kerry prepared to meet his Russian counterpart on Wednesday.

In a show of support for the new interim leaders in Kiev on Tuesday, Kerry condemned Russia’s “act of aggression” and accused Moscow of “working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further.”

Pro-Kremlin forces are in de facto control of the strategic, majority-Russian Crimean Peninsula, where Ukrainian troops remain blocked inside their barracks in the most serious standoff between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War.

Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his government had made the first “timid” contacts with Russian leaders aimed at resolving the crisis.

Tough rhetoric

But the rhetoric from the United States and Russia remained tough.

Obama said the European Union and allies like Canada and Japan all believed Russia had violated international law by mobilizing troops following the Feb. 22 ouster of pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych.

“President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers, maybe a different set of interpretations. But I do not think that is fooling anybody,” Obama said during a visit to a school in the US capital.

Putin, breaking more than a week of silence with a press conference in Moscow, said his country reserved the right to use “all available means” to protect Russians in Ukraine. “This is a last resort,” he added.

Responding to claims by Ukraine’s new authorities that thousands of Russian troops had poured into Crimea in recent days, Putin said that only “local forces of self-defense” were surrounding Ukrainian military bases in the region.

Asked if Russian forces took part in operations in Crimea, he said: “No, they did not participate,” adding: “There are lots of uniforms that look similar.”

When told of Putin’s remarks by a reporter in Kiev, Kerry responded: “He really denied there were Russian forces in Crimea?” and shook his head, bewildered.

The top US diplomat is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Paris on Wednesday, the first such meeting since the Crimea crisis started.

Separately, Kerry is to hold three-way talks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague and acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia.

Lavrov will also meet the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany at the Paris meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon.