MILAN: Germany warned on Friday that the Ukraine crisis was spiralling "out of control", as European Union foreign ministers grappled with how to respond to what some termed a Russian invasion.
"The situation in Ukraine is entering a new dimension," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters on the sidelines of talks with his EU counterparts in Milan.
"All our hopes of de-escalation have been disappointed and the situation is showing signs that it is now out of control."
The foreign ministers were meeting on the eve of a summit of EU leaders which will consider further sanctions against Moscow and steps to support Ukraine in the hope of heading off a direct confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
That prospect has begun to look like an explosive possibility following NATO's announcement this week that 1,000 Russian troops are fighting alongside pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine -- a depiction of events that is disputed by the Kremlin.
Acknowledging that international sanctions approved to date have had little impact on Russian President Vladimir Putin, most of the ministers appeared to regard further measures as inevitable, although it was unclear whether Saturday's summit would approve new steps immediately or simply instruct officials in Brussels to prepare them.
Sweden's Carl Bildt said Russia had to be sent a clear message that its incursions into its neighbour's territory were unacceptable.
"This is the second invasion of Ukraine in a year. We have to call a spade a spade and stop playing around," Bildt said.
Echoing a recurring theme in Milan, Bildt's Danish counterpart Martin Lidegaard said the EU now needed to rethink its entire relationship with Russia.
"We think it calls for a reaction that Russia is now with troops on Ukrainian ground," Lidegaard said.
"In the short term we have to look at further sanctions and in the longer term we have to look at measures to reduce our energy dependency on Russia."
His comments came as Russia's energy minister warned that the crisis in Ukraine could lead to a disruption of Russian gas supplies to Western Europe this winter -- an outcome that would have serious implications for a number of EU states.
Dutch minister Fran Timmermans admitted it was not certain if the EU leaders would be able to agree on new sanctions. "I'm not sure but this (the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine) cannot remain unanswered," he said.
The strongest calls for tough action came from EU states that were once communist satellites of the Soviet Union.
Lithuania's Linas Linkevicus urged EU leaders to consider "all possible support" to the Ukrainian government, including the provision of military material.
"We are not talking about sending soldiers and, by the way, Ukraine is not asking for that," he stressed.
His Estonian counterpart Urmas Paet added: "There has been no real impact of sanctions. Noone likes it but we have to move forward with further measures."
Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland would be looking to its EU partners for proposals "to stop Putin making further encroachments and to save Ukraine in its current form," describing in a tweet the situation as "war".
The Polish minister distributed a basket of his country's apples now banned from Russia as part of Moscow's counter-sanctions against the West to reporters.
"President Putin says they are poisonous," he said. "I can assure you they are delicious if you want to show what you think of his (Putin's) policies, eat a Polish apple!"
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