WASHINGTON (AP) - Russia has told the United States that it will respect the sovereignty of Ukraine and that military exercises near the Russian-Ukraine border are not a prelude to an intervention, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday.
Russia scrambled fighter jets to patrol its border and reportedly gave shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assured Kerry the buildup was scheduled previously and was unrelated to the recent unrest in Ukraine.
The military movements had unnerved the U.S. because they followed the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych, who has fled Kiev, the capital, and reportedly is seeking refuge outside Moscow.
Kerry warned Russia this week against a military intervention the former Soviet republic and said it could face a strong response from the West, though he did not specify what that might be.
"We will look to Russia for the choices that it makes in the next days for their confirmation of these statements," Kerry said at a State Department news conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "Words are words. We have all learned that it's actions and the follow-on choices that make the greatest difference."
Kerry predicted that the military exercise will not be "so prolonged that it is going to have an impact on events there."
"Everybody needs to step back and avoid provocations," Kerry said.
Kerry said the U.S. also supports a vote Thursday by Ukraine's parliament to approve a transitional government that will run the country until elections in May. But in Ukraine's strategic Crimea region, gunmen stormed government buildings and raised a Russian flag over the regional parliament.
Moscow is "concerned" about the takeover in Crimea, and Kerry said Lavrov "disclaimed that it had anything to do with any formal Russian initiative."
"They don't want to see a breakdown into violence," Kerry said. Even so, he struck a skeptical tone, noting that Russia can't credibly claim to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity if it is also encouraging a separatist movement.
"Nowhere is there a greater connection, a link to Russia in several different ways as there is in Crimea," Kerry told reporters. "But as the days unfold this should not become a struggle between the United States and Russia, East and West. This is about the people of Ukraine."