Russia warns Ukraine over 'lawlessness' in east

Ukraine's foreign minister today said that his country was practically in a state of war with Russia, as Moscow further ratcheted up pressure on Kiev, claiming that Russian-leaning eastern regions have plunged into lawlessness.
Russian forces have effectively taken control over Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in what has turned into Europe's greatest geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War.
The region is to hold a referendum on Sunday on whether to split off and become part of Russia, which the West says it will not recognize.
"We have to admit that our life now is almost like ... A war," Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsya said before meeting his counterparts from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. "We have to cope with an aggression that we do not understand."

Deshchytsya said Ukraine is counting on help from the West. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington on Wednesday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry today said lawlessness "now rules in eastern regions of Ukraine as a result of the actions of fighters of the so-called 'Right Sector,' with the full connivance" of Ukraine's new authorities.

Right Sector is a grouping of several far-right and nationalist factions whose activists were among the most radical and confrontational of the three-monthlong demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, which eventually ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.
The Kremlin statement also claimed Russian citizens trying to enter Ukraine have been turned back at the border by Ukrainian officials.

Pro-Russia sentiment is high in Ukraine's east and there are fears Russia could seek to incorporate that area as well.
Obama has warned that the referendum in Crimea would violate international law. But yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he supports the vote, in phone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Minister David Cameron.
"The steps taken by the legitimate leadership of Crimea are based on the norms of international law and aim to ensure the legal interests of the population of the peninsula," said Putin, according to the Kremlin.
Putin was briefed today by Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on the contents of a document Lavrov received from Secretary of State John Kerry explaining the US view of the situation in Ukraine.

That document contains "a concept which does not quite agree with us because everything was stated in terms of allegedly having a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and in terms of accepting the fait accompli," Lavrov said.
The Kremlin contends Yanukovych, Ukraine's legally elected, pro-Kremlin president, was ousted by a coup.