President Obama meets Ukrainian leaders, U.S. 'will completely reject' Crimean referendum

President Barack Obama met with the current Ukrainian leader and continued to issue warnings directed at Russia over Crimea.

The president met with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House and spoke about his continued hope that Russia will change its mind about Crimea, reports The Associated Press reports. "There's another path available and we hope President [Vladimir] Putin is willing to seize that path."

The new prime minister spoke about Ukraine's desire to "be part of the Western world," which lead to the whole mess and riots in the first place when the former president Viktor Yanukovych had backed out of talks and decided to stick with supporting Russia.

According to BBC News, Obama said that the U.S. "will completely reject" any Crimean referendum results that seeks to have the country break away from the Ukraine and become part of Russia.

As Congress prepares to finalize a $1 billion loan to Ukraine's new government, other G7 countries, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, France and the EU continued to back Ukraine and press Russia to pull troops out of Crimea.

They also noted that they would have to "take further action, individually and collectively" if Russia proceeds to repudiate the West in relation to Crimea.

image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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