Merkel warns Russia of \\\'massive\\\' damage over Ukraine

BERLIN, Mar 13 (AFP): German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Russia Thursday of "massive" long-term damage to its interests if it continued to violate international law with its seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.
In a speech to parliament looking ahead to a European Union summit next week in which the 28-member bloc could impose new sanctions against Moscow, Merkel said Russia was using the "failed" expansionist tactics of the 19th and 20th centuries.
"If Russia continues its course of the last weeks, it would not only be a catastrophe for Ukraine," she told the chamber, where the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany was also a guest.
"We would not only see it, also as neighbours of Russia, as a threat. It would not only change the relationship of the European Union as a whole to Russia. No, it would also, and I am firmly convinced of this, massively damage Russia both economically and politically."
Merkel said that in a year in which Europe is marking both the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia must learn from the mistakes of the past.
"You cannot turn back the clock," she said.