In Brussels, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the military alliance would increase its presence in Eastern Europe, including flying more sorties over the Baltic region west of Ukraine and deploying allied warships to the Baltic Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. NATO's supreme commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, told reporters that ground forces also could be involved at some point, but gave no details.
So far, the military movements and two initial rounds of sanctions against Russians and Ukrainians accused by the West of stirring up the unrest have done little to ease tensions.
Ukraine's military launched its first actions against the pro-Russian forces on Tuesday. A day later, in the eastern Ukraine city of Slovyansk, pro-Russian insurgents took over six Ukrainian armored vehicles along with their crews and hoisted Russian flags over them before driving into town. The Ukrainian soldiers manning the vehicles offered no armed resistance, and masked pro-Russian militias in combat fatigues rode on top of the vehicles in a defiant rejection of Kiev's hope to re-establish control over the restive region.
Insurgents in Slovyansk have seized the police headquarters and the administration building, demanding broader autonomy for eastern Ukraine and closer ties with Russia. Their actions have been repeated in at least eight other cities in eastern Ukraine. The central government says Moscow is provoking the unrest.
Officials said a full-scale Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine would result in broad U.S. and European sanctions on key Russian economic sectors, including its powerful energy industry. However, European nations are divided on whether to limit its access to Russia's oil and gas supplies, and a vote to sanction must be unanimous among the EU's 28 member states.
The sanctions that could be levied in the aftermath of the Geneva meeting were expected to focus on Putin's close associates, including oligarchs who control much of Russia's wealth, as well as businesses and other entities they control. It was unclear whether those sanctions would change Putin's calculus, given that the U.S. and the Europeans already have launched targeted sanctions on people in Putin's inner circle.
