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World must isolate Russia

Says Obama as OSCE monitors presented before media as 'war prisoners'

AFP, Slavyansk
Pro-Russian militants in Ukraine presented a captured team of international observers as "prisoners of war" yesterday, raising the stakes in the crisis as US President Barack Obama warned Moscow against "provocation".
The self-styled mayor of rebel-held Slavyansk, which has become the epicentre of the crisis, led eight European members of an OSCE military inspection mission before scores of local and foreign journalists in the town hall.
With four armed rebels watching over him, a spokesman for the group, Cerman officer Axel Schneider, said the team was in good health and stressed they were "OSCE officers with diplomatic status".
"I cannot go home of my own free will," he told reporters.
One of the OSCE men, a Swede, was later released as he suffers from diabetes, a rebel spokeswoman told AFP.
Pro-Russia militias this month occupied a string of towns and cities in eastern Ukraine, sparking a military response from the Ukrainian army, which is laying siege to Slavyansk.
Western nations and Kiev have accused Russia of stirring up unrest in its neighbor and supporting the armed separatists' revolt.
The detention of the OSCE men sparked global outrage amid the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War.
AFP reporters in Slavyansk said tensions were running high at checkpoints, while militants were reinforcing their positions in the town and ordering journalists away.
The international community is on edge, with one Western diplomat raising the possibility of an invasion in the coming days by Russia, which has some 40,000 troops massed on the border.
Speaking in Asia, Obama called for global unity as Europe and the United States prepare fresh sanctions against Moscow expected to come into force as early as today.
Obama said Russia had "not lifted a finger" to implement a deal struck in Geneva on April 17 aimed at easing the
OSCE captives crisis.
Continued Russian "provocation" would meet with "consequences, and those consequences will continue to grow", he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
He urged Russia to call on the militants in eastern Ukraine to leave occupied buildings and "participate with international observers and monitors rather than stand by while they are being bullied and in some cases detained by these thugs".
Russia has said it will also take steps to secure the European inspectors' freedom but has blamed Kiev for their capture, stressing it was up to the host country to ensure their security.
The rebels have accused the OSCE team of being "Nato spies" and said they would only be freed as part of a prisoner swap.
As the crisis worsened, the Group of Seven leading economies and the European Union were readying sanctions that could be announced as soon as today in a bid to raise the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The EU said top officials would meet today to weigh further sanctions. Diplomats have already approved in principle a list adding 15 people to the 55 Russians and Ukrainians already blacklisted.
The United States and European Union have already targeted Putin's inner circle with visa and asset freezes and imposed sanctions on a key Russian bank.
Obama stressed the need for a unified response to isolate Russia.
It was vital to avoid "falling into the trap of interpreting this as the US is trying to pull Ukraine out of Russia's orbit, circa 1950. Because that's not what this is about," he said.
"We're going to be in a stronger position to deter Mr Putin when he sees that the world is unified and the United States and Europe are unified rather than this is just a US-Russian conflict," Obama added.
A senior US official said the sanctions would target Russia's defence industry as well as individuals and companies close to Putin.
While Obama has ruled out sending US or Nato forces into Ukraine, Washington has begun deploying 600 US troops to bolster Nato's defences in nearby eastern European states.