DONETSK, Ukraine: Pro-Russian militants of the \"battalion East\" and the road policeman stand guard at the checkpoint on the road linking Donetsk to Mariupol on Thursday in the eastern Ukrainian town of Donetsk. — AFP Photo LONDON, May 15 (AFP): The United States and European partners are stepping up efforts to draft tougher sanctions against Russia if it seeks to disrupt Ukraine's upcoming presidential elections, a US official said Thursday.
Ukrainian officials are also working to hold another round of unity talks in eastern Ukraine on Monday, the senior State Department official revealed.
During talks in London Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry briefed counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Italy on the latest US efforts to draw up sanctions as the West seeks to support the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine.
The US and its allies are working "to send a unified message to pro-Russian separatists and Moscow that any disruption of these elections will result in the next round of costs for Russia including sectoral sanctions," a US official told reporters.
There was "broad unity that if the elections are disrupted and Moscow's hand is behind that, that we need to move to sectoral sanctions."
"There was no dissent on that subject," the official stressed, asking not to be named.
US President Barack Obama has already drafted an executive order to impose sanctions on Russia across key sectors such as banking, energy, defence and mining.
The aim was "to use a scalpel rather than a hammer" and to focus on new investment in these sectors, the official said, adding "that there are a lot of things we can do to create bleeding."
The Russian economy "does have considerable vulnerabilities," the official said, adding European countries, which have greater economic and energy dependance on Russia than the US, were "becoming increasingly confident that there is a way to do this."
Ukrainian authorities are also planning to hold new unity talks in eastern Ukraine on Monday, although it had not yet been determined where.
Kiev on Wednesday hosted the first round of so-called national unity talks under an OSCE initiative to try to resolve the deepening crisis on Europe's eastern flank and allow the May 25 vote to go ahead.
But crucially, the pro-Moscow rebels fighting against Kiev's rule in the industrial east of the country were not at the negotiating table, despite Western calls for the talks to be inclusive.
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