Gunmen occupied parliament and the government building in Ukraine’s Crimea region and raised the Russian flag as lawmakers in the capital meet to approve a new cabinet after last week’s ouster of Viktor Yanukovych as leader.
The group hasn’t made any demands, Lilia Muslimova, a spokeswoman for the head of the Crimean Tatar council, said by phone from Simferopol, the regional capital. Interior Ministry troops have cordoned off the block around parliament, acting minister Arsen Avakov said. Russia, which has a naval base in the region, put fighter jets on combat alert, Interfax reported.
“Provocateurs are on the march,” Avakov said on his Facebook Inc. page. “It’s time for cool heads, the consolidation of healthy forces and precise actions.”
Yanukovych’s departure is rattling parts of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east and south, where supporters of the government in Moscow have clashed with ethnic Tatars. In Kiev, opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk is seeking confirmation as premier as politicians race to start negotiations with Western lenders over as much as $35 billion in financial aid.
Ukraine’s currency weakened 4.9 percent to 10.65 per dollar at 10:45 a.m. in Kiev, the lowest level since it was introduced in 1996, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The central bank imposed capital controls this month to stem its decline.
About 120 professionally trained and well armed men took over the parliament and government buildings in Simferopol, according to Serhiy Kunitsyn, a lawmaker for the UDAR party of opposition leader and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.
While the situation is “crisislike,” the attackers aren’t acting aggressively, Crimean Prime Minister Anatoliy Mogilev said on ATR television today.
Fistfights broke out yesterday near Crimea’s parliament as hundreds of demonstrators demanded a referendum on breaking the region off from Ukraine and joining Russia. They were met by several thousand Tatars, chanting “Crimea isn’t Russia!”
Russia’s Black Sea fleet leases its main base from Ukraine in Sevastopol, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the regional capital. Russia yesterday began a series of military exercises in its western central regions, though it said they weren’t related to events in Ukraine.
Today’s fighter-jet mission is part of those drills, Interfax reported, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry. Warplanes are patrolling western border zones and fighter jets are on the highest alert, it said.
Ukraine’s Acting President, Oleksandr Turchynov, said he regards movements of Russia’s Black Sea forces outside of their bases as aggression.
In Kiev, parties are continuing talks on the makeup of an interim cabinet that would work for about four months, according to Turchynov. Yatsenyuk, the leader of Yulia Tymoshenko’s opposition party in parliament, is former central banker, economy minister and foreign minister who’s received backing from U.S. diplomats to head the government.
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net; Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net
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