New | Kerry threatens to punish and isolate Russia ahead of planned visit to Ukraine

Ukraine put its military on high alert and appealed for international help to avoid what it feared was the possibility of a wider invasion by Russia as outrage over Russia’s military moves mounted in world capitals, with US Secretary of State John Kerry calling on President Vladimir Putin to pull back from “an incredible act of aggression”.

Kerry is scheduled to visit Ukraine on Tuesday and warned that Russia could face sanctions that would hamper its economic position in the world, along with a US-EU boycott of the upcoming Group of Eight summit, in an attempt to isolate the Kremlin.

“[Putin] is going to lose on the international stage,” Kerry said in a television interview, according to The Washington Post, adding that Russian banks could be a target of sanctions.

“There are visa bans, asset freezes, isolation with respect to trade, investment. American businesses may well want to start thinking twice about whether they want to do business with a country that behaves like this. These are serious implications,” he said.

Kerry also said that the administration was ready to provide economic assistance “of a major sort” to Ukraine, the report said.

A day after Russia captured the Crimean peninsula without firing a shot, fears grew in the Ukrainian capital and beyond that Russia might seek to expand its control by seizing other parts of eastern Ukraine.