Russian military moves in Crimea are declaration of war, says Ukrainian PM
Kiev calls up military reserves, Russian troops surround Crimean base and Nato ambassadors meet in Brussels
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Russian military moves in Crimea are declaration of war, says Ukrainian PM
Kiev calls up military reserves, Russian troops surround Crimean base and Nato ambassadors meet in Brussels - theguardian.com,
"We are on the brink of disaster," said Yatseniuk, as Kiev called for help from Washington and London, co-signatories of a 1994 pact with Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's security.
"This is actually a declaration of war on my country. We urge Putin to pull back his troops from this country and honour bilateral agreements. If he wants to be the president who started a war between two neighbouring and friendly countries, he has reached his target within a few inches," he said.
As Yatseniuk spoke, hundreds of Russian troops were surrounding a Ukrainian base just outside the Crimean capital, Simferopol, in the latest military manoeuvre on the peninsula indicative of a move by Moscow to annex, in all but name, the Black Sea peninsula.
Ukrainian soldiers, left and unidentified gunmen, right, at the gate
of a Crimean infantry base. Photograph: Darko Vojinovic/AP
The Guardian witnessed crowds of Russian civilians gathering outside the base at Perevalnoye.
Russian units have already secured the parliament building in
Simferopol and two airports on Crimea, in moves that have provoked the
gravest crisis in the post-Soviet region since the 2008 Russia-Georgia
war."Their aim is to stop Ukraine's economy and to start chaos," said the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov. "That is why they try to start panic."
Western powers are pondering their limited options. Nato ambassadors met in Brussels, with Lithuania and Poland arguing that Russia's actions threatened them as Nato members bordering Russia and Ukraine, and pushing for appropriate action.
"What Russia is doing now in Ukraine threatens peace and security in Europe," said Nato's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
EU foreign ministers are to meet in emergency session in Brussels on Monday where Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, will report on his talks in Kiev on Sunday with the interim Ukrainian government, who has been in office only a matter of days.
The diplomatic flurry followed a tense 90-minute phone conversation on Saturday night between Barack Obama and Putin. The Russian president told his US counterpart that Moscow had the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers not only in Crimea but also in east Ukraine.
Obama called on Russian forces to pull troops back to base in Crimea and not interfere elsewhere. He also warned Putin that Russia faced greater political and economic isolation. The White House said in a statement: "President Obama expressed his deep concern over Russia's clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is a breach of international law."
Russian military submarines at a navy base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Photograph: Reuters
Tensions escalated into the night when two Russian anti-submarine
warships appeared off Crimea's coast, violating an agreement on Moscow's
lease of a naval base, a Ukrainian military source was quoted as
saying. The two vessels, part of Russia's Baltic fleet, had been sighted
in a bay at Sevastopol, where Moscow's Black Sea fleet is based.After several days of Russian stealth, the move to deploy forces came suddenly and decisively. The Kremlin said Putin wanted troops in Ukraine "until the sociopolitical situation is normalised". Less than an hour later, in a hastily convened extraordinary sitting of Russia's Federation Council that was laced with cold war rhetoric, senators voted unanimously to support Putin's plan, and proposed withdrawing Russia's ambassador to the US.
The crisis was precipitated by the sudden flight of the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, following months of protests in Kiev that left at least 82 people dead. Yanukovych claimed on Friday that he was still the country's legitimate president, and branded the new government Nazis. Ukraine's new government has disbanded the Berkut riot police involved in clashes with protesters, while Russia has announced it will give them Russian passports. The first of them collected passports at a Russian consulate in Crimea on Saturday.
COPY http://www.theguardian.com/
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