You're reading: US will apply sectoral sanctions against Russia

 Should the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist referendum occur and Russia follow up with recognition and the deployment of forces into the Ukrainian areas, "that will be a trigger" for sanctioning the finance, energy and defense sectors of the Russian economy, said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. Nuland comments came at a hearing at the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, as the Guardian reported on Wednesday.

 She said the United States won’t recognize bogus referendums on the southeast of Ukraine on May 11.

“We have no doubt that the Russian hand is behind this. That they are providing material support, that they are providing funding, that they are providing weapons, that they are providing coordination and that there are Russians on the ground involved in this,” the Voice of America radio station quotes Nuland as saying.

She stressed the US “wants to see Ukrainians across the country being able to make their choice at the ballot box on May 25th and…everybody’s voice is heard in, but to settle these issues peacefully, democratically – the way we would, the way Europe would, and not with little green men and Kalashnikovs, and mines and torture and hostage-taking.”

The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe reported that the OSCE is going to send for the elections approximately thousand of observers, of which 10% will present the United States.

Besides, Kyiv is considering a possibility to organize “alternative polling stations” in Sloviansk, Nuland added.