West responds to Russian annexation of Crimea with plans of more sanctions and meetings

FXStreet (Łódź) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told the parliament today that Crimea and Sevastopol were part of Russia now and that sanctions imposed by the EU and the US were an act of aggression which would be met with retaliation. Moscow assured that the Crimea accession accord would be approved in a matter of days.

Following Putin's speech on Crimea, Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has reiterated that Kiev would not recognize the peninsula as part of Russia.

US Treasury not aware of Russia withdrawing money from the US

A senior US Treasury official informed on Tuesday that EU and the US would harmonize their sanctions against Russia in the nearest future. He also denied being aware of Russia liquidating its US treasury bill holdings in the aftermath to the Crimea crisis. Markets have begun speculating on this possibility as last week more than 100 billion dollars in Treasury bonds were moved out of the US.

International community mulls further moves

Meanwhile, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius informed on his twitter account that the G8 leaders decided to suspend Russia as a member and added that “it is envisaged that all the other countries, the seven leading countries, will unite without Russia."

This statement was contradicted later on by German Chancellor Angela Merkel who declared that Russia's status in the G8 was unchanged for now.

US President Barack Obama on the other hand invited the G7 leaders and EU officials to hold talks on Ukraine on the sidelines of the the Nuclear Security Summit in Hague next week.

US Vice President Joe Biden visited Warsaw on Tuesday to meet with the leaders of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia and send a signal to Vladimir Putin that the US wouldn't accept the incorporation of Crimea into Russia.