Russian troops seized “crucial facilities” in Crimea, the Ukrainian province’s new leader said, hours after the country’s president accused Vladimir Putin of invading the southern coastal region.
Following a plea for assistance from Ukraine’s former Cold-War master, Crimean Premier Sergey Aksenov said Russian troops were guarding key buildings in the country’s mainly Russian-speaking Black Sea region, news service Interfax reported today. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov accused Russia of “naked aggression.”
“The situation is under control,” Aksenov was quoted as saying by Interfax today. “Cooperation has been established with the Black Sea Fleet on guarding crucial facilities. A joint group is working. I am certain that they can fulfill the task of maintaining public order.”
Putin is trying to assert his power over parts of Ukraine with large Russian populations after last week’s overthrow of former President Viktor Yanukovych. The military movements risk destabilizing the country as Kiev’s new government looks to the U.S. and Europe for a bailout to stave off default. U.S. President Barack Obama said yesterday he’s “deeply concerned” by reports of Russian military movements in Crimea.
Interim leader Oleksandr Turchynov told lawmakers, “We must hold a vote on Thursday on a coalition government of national trust. We have no more time.” Close
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Interim leader Oleksandr Turchynov told lawmakers, “We must hold a vote on Thursday on a coalition government of national trust. We have no more time.”
Ukraine’s defense minister said today that Russia, which has a military base in the ethnically diverse region, has taken 6,000 more soldiers into Crimea in the past 24 hours. Yesterday, VAT Ukrtelecom, the biggest provider of fixed phone lines in Ukraine, said it has lost contact with its Crimean unit.
‘Military Intervention’
The council of Russia’s state Duma appealed to Putin to protect Russians in Crimea from “tyranny and violence,” news service RIA reported, citing Speaker Sergei Naryshkin.
“Obvious that there is Russian military intervention in Ukraine,” Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said on his Twitter account today. “Likely immediate aim is to set up puppet pro-Russian semi state in Crimea.”
Western leaders urged Putin, who is holding his silence for now, not to fuel further turmoil in Crimea by intervening.
“Everything must be done to ensure the territorial integrity” of Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in speech in Berlin today.
U.K. Foreign Minister William Hague said he will travel to Kiev tomorrow for talks with Ukraine’s new government and that he’d spoken to his Russian counterpart “to call for de-escalation in Crimea and respect for sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” according to his Twitter account.
Limited Leverage
Obama, who made a brief statement at the White House yesterday, didn’t specify any potential American actions, underscoring the West’s limited leverage over Putin in the crisis. In New York, the United Nations Security Council met for about 90 minutes in an emergency closed-door meeting at Ukraine’s request.
Obama spoke publicly after U.S. intelligence confirmed that a number of Russian troops had entered Ukraine in vehicles, transport planes and helicopters without the permission of the country’s new interim government, said two U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Both requested anonymity to discuss classified reports.
The officials said the Russian forces’ mission, at least initially, appeared to be securing airfields near the region’s capital of Simferopol and reinforcing a small contingent of Russian marines stationed at the home base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.
Airports Surrounded
Unidentified gunmen surrounded Crimea’s main airport in Simferopol last night. More than 10 trucks carrying Russian servicemen also encircled the Kirov military airfield, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified person in the Ukrainian military in the region.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said gunmen “sent by Kiev” tried to seize Crimea’s Interior Ministry. Ukrainian authorities denied the charge and Interfax cited a Ukrainian border service official who it didn’t name as saying armed men tried to overcome Ukraine’s border guard unit in Sevastopol. An unidentified group of masked men also took over the trade union building in Simferopol.
While the U.S. officials declined to discuss the nature, number or weaponry of the Russian forces, they said two concerns are that the airfields might be used to bring additional Russian forces into Crimea and that resistance from Ukrainian forces or civilians could escalate the crisis.
Sochi Meeting
The U.S. and its allies may find it difficult to attend the Group of Eight meeting in Sochi, Russia, in June if Russia violates its commitments to a sovereign Ukraine, said an Obama administration official who requested anonymity to describe the discussions. Russia’s desire for improved trade and commercial ties also may be put at risk, the official said.
“Even though, so far, the events have unfolded peacefully, the situation isn’t guaranteed to remain that way,” Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said in a phone interview.
Crimea was given to Ukraine by Russia in 1954 by then-Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev. Ethnic Russians comprise 59 percent of Crimea’s population of about 2 million people, with 24 percent Ukrainian and 12 percent Tatar, according to 2001 census data. Russians make up 17 percent of Ukraine’s entire population of 45 million people.
Ethnic Russians
Russia has alarmed Western leaders with moves in Crimea to thwart any push by Ukraine’s democratic movement to draw the nation toward the European Union and out of Moscow’s orbit.
It wasn’t clear, though, what tools the U.S. and its allies have to deter Russia from escalating the situation.
“There could be trade or financial sanctions on Russia,” said Daniel Serwer, senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “The problem is no one wants to go back to a Cold War.”
The turmoil also comes as Ukraine’s new government tries to shore up an economy in need of outside aid. Ukraine needs $15 billion in the next 2 1/2 years from the International Monetary Fund, and securing a financing deal at the start of April would be the best scenario, Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak said in Kiev.
Energy Risk
Still, a full invasion of Ukraine could risk interrupting deliveries of Russian gas to other European nations and further destabilizing a country that’s already on the brink of default and elected a new government only this week. Gazprom today reiterated that Ukraine owes $1.55 billion for supplies of Russian gas, RIA said, citing company officials.
In Crimea, Aksenov yesterday ordered all local police, army and border-patrol units to report to him and called on Putin to help secure order in the region, Interfax reported citing the Crimean government press service. Aksenov was voted as prime minister of Crimea by the regional parliament in a closed-door session Feb. 27 after unidentified gunmen took control of the legislature’s building in Simferopol.
In New York, Ukraine’s UN ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said Russia illegally flew military transport aircraft and helicopters across Ukraine’s borders. While he didn’t have information on “heavily weaponed people” at Crimea’s two airports and parliament area, he said it’s already clear that Russia has violated Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Putin Silent
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment when reached by mobile phone.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said the establishment of the new interim Ukrainian government was “questionable” and said Russia wants to return to an internationally mediated Feb. 21 accord between ousted president Yanukovych and his opponents. Churkin said he had no specific information on extra Russian forces having been deployed to Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine.
“I recall from history books that when World War I started, some newspapers in the United Kingdom reported that they saw Russian cossacks in the railway station. So those reports -- they’re not always true,” Churkin said.
“We have an agreement with Ukraine on the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the base near Sevastopol, and we are acting within the framework of that agreement,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net; Terry Atlas in Washington at tatlas@bloomberg.net; Volodymyr Verbyany in Simferopol at vverbyany1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net; Mark Sweetman at msweetman@bloomberg.net; Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
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