Europe must not relax in preparing tough economic sanctions against Russia because tensions over Ukraine are still high and Russia has not done enough to reduce them, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
Hague, arriving for a meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Friday, said very large numbers of Russian forces remained on Ukraine's eastern border. There had been only a "token withdrawal" of those forces so far and the situation remained very dangerous, he said.
"We haven't seen real de-escalation by Russia and therefore Europe must not relax in preparing a third tier of sanctions and making sure we continue to have a strong and united response," he said, referring to tough trade and economic measures that the EU has threatened to take against Russia if it moves beyond Crimea into southern and eastern Ukraine.
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