SLAVYANSK: The Group of Seven rich countries have agreed to start slapping fresh sanctions on Moscow as early as Monday over the worsening Ukraine crisis amid Western fears of an imminent Russian invasion.
International tensions were mounting Saturday over the situation in the ex-Soviet republic, where sporadic fighting between pro-Kremlin rebels and Ukrainian security forces flared this week.
Russian warplanes violated Ukraine's airspace several times on Thursday and Friday, the Pentagon said.
Russia has also begun new drills on the border, where it has tens of thousands of troops massed.
A Western diplomat warned: "We no longer exclude a Russian military intervention in Ukraine in the coming days."
The diplomatic source noted that Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, "has been recalled urgently to Moscow" for consultations.
Ukraine's prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, on Saturday cut short a trip to Rome after seeing Pope Francis, skipping a Sunday canonisation ceremony for popes John Paul II and John XXIII "because of the situation," his spokeswoman told AFP.
On the ground in east Ukraine, Kiev's Western-backed government is waging an offensive against pro-Moscow rebels holding a string of towns.
A 13-member OSCE military observer team sent into Ukraine to monitor an April 17 Geneva accord designed to de-escalate the situation was being held hostage by rebels in the flashpoint town of Slavyansk.
The chief of the insurgents' self-styled "Republic of Donetsk", Denis Pushilin, accused them of being "NATO spies" and said they would only be released in a prisoner swap for militants detained by Ukrainian forces.
An AFP journalist in Slavyansk said a barricade around the building where the team from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was being held had been greatly fortified with sandbags and a machine-gun.
Washington and Europe called for the immediate release of the OSCE team, which includes members from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to intervene to have the team freed, officials in Berlin said.
Russia responded it would do everything in its power to win their release.
Kiev has accused Moscow -- which it sees as controlling the rebels -- of seeking to trigger a "third world war" and urged Russian troops to withdraw from the border.
Russia in turn has warned it has a "right" to invade to protect Ukraine's Russian-speaking population concentrated in the east and southeast, sparking the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War.
The G7 nations said in a joint statement they would "move swiftly to impose additional sanctions on Russia".
"These sanctions will be coordinated and complementary, but not necessarily identical. US sanctions could come as early as Monday," a senior US administration official said.
The Group of Seven consists of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. EU foreign ministers are also to meet soon to discuss the issue.
The United States and the European Union have already targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle with visa and asset freezes and imposed sanctions on a key Russian bank.
A senior White House official said the next round of sanctions could target "individuals with influence on the Russian economy, such as energy and banking".
US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Malaysia with President Barack Obama, spoke of "a spectrum of sanctions" that "allows us to escalate further" if the situation deteriorates.
Obama on Friday said that new sanctions against Russia were "ready to go" but had signalled they would not target key areas of the Russian economy such as the mining, energy and the financial sectors.
US officials have said those measures would only be considered if Russia sent its regular forces into Ukraine.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said sanctions were a long-term strategy.
"The goal is to hurt the Russian economy while doing the least damage necessary to the US and the global economy," he told American public radio.
"We've made clear we're prepared to take tougher actions and prepared to absorb the consequences of that if we need to."
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