Russia and West Continue Dialogue Over Crimea Actions

Russia and the West sought to draw a provisional line under the Ukraine crisis on Tuesday after major industrialized nations warned Moscow of tougher economic sanctions if it goes beyond the seizure of Crimea.

After initially scoffing at a decision by the United States and its allies to boycott a planned Group of Eight summit in Sochi and hold a G-7 summit instead without Russia, the Kremlin said it was keen to maintain contact with G-8 partners.
“The Russian side continues to be ready to have such contacts at all levels, including the top level. We are interested in such contacts,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Interfax news agency.

British Prime Minister David Cameron signaled meanwhile that while the West did not accept Putin’s annexation of Crimea, it would take more severe measures against sectors of the Russian economy only if he went further.
(Read more: Russia’s next step:Capital controls?)

“There’s a view that the status quo is unacceptable, but there’s then another very, very strong view that any further steps into Eastern Ukraine would be even more serious and would result in much greater sanctions,” Cameron told reporters in The Hague when asked whether the West accepted that Crimea was lost.
While maintaining a barrage of hostility against NATO and the United States in its state-owned media, Moscow made two conciliatory gestures on Monday as its deputy economy minister acknowledged up to $70 billion in capital may have fled his country in the first quarter of the year.

via CNBC

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