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Obama, Putin on brink of breaking point

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US President Barack Obama has reached the breaking point with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of Crimea’s secession from Ukraine, a report says.

A report in The Hill newspaper said Obama has warned Putin against a grab for territory in Crimea while the Russian president has ignored his American counterpart’s calls for shift in policies on Crimea.

Some analysts believe the US government’s sanctions against Putin’s top advisors could be the “beginning of a deep freeze” in ties between the two former Cold War rivals.

Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security, said the Obama-Putin dispute “had the potential to end very badly.”

“I don’t think this means war, but this could spell the beginning of a long period of extreme diplomatic alienation between the West and Russia,” he was quoted as saying.
The war of words escalated between Putin and Obama after Crimeans voted in a referendum on Sunday to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

On Tuesday, Putin signed a treaty making Crimea part of Russia and accused the United States of basing its policies on the rule of the gun and not international law.

“Our Western partners headed by the United States prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun,” the Russian president said.
In a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the sanctions as “absolutely unacceptable”, saying that the measures would have consequences.

Crimea has witnessed dramatic developments in the last few days, taking the center stage of world news.

On Sunday, 96.8 percent of residents of Crimea voted to break away from Ukraine and rejoin Russia in a referendum that has triggered the biggest crisis in relations between the United States and Russia since the Cold War.

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