US Senate panel close to approving ‘mother of all sanctions’ against Russia

The leaders of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Sunday they were on the verge of approving "the mother of all sanctions" against Vladimir Putin, warning there would be no appeasement as the Russian president contemplates an invasion of Ukraine.

"We cannot have a Munich moment again," the panel's Democratic chair, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, told CNN's State of the Union, referring to the 1938 agreement by which allies ceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, believing it would stave off war.

"Putin will not stop if he believes the west will not respond," Menendez said. "We saw what he did in 2008 in Georgia, we saw what he did in 2014 in pursuit of Crimea. He will not stop."

Menendez said he believed bipartisan negotiations for severe sanctions were "on the one-yard line", despite disagreements with Republicans over whether measures should be imposed before or after any Russian invasion. The UK government promised to ramp up sanctions against Putin and his associates.

The negotiations come ahead of an expected UN security council meeting on Monday, at the request of the US, to give Russia the opportunity to explain its actions.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said: "We're going to go into the council prepared to listen to Russia's security concerns, but we're not going to be distracted by their propaganda."

On Sunday, Kyiv urged Moscow to pull back its troops from Ukraine's border and continue dialogue with the west if it was "serious" about de-escalating tensions that have soared amid fears of a Russian invasion. Canada moved its Ukraine-based military units westward on Sunday and announced the temporary withdrawal of all non-essential employees from its Kyiv embassy, citing ongoing Russian threats along the border.