RUSSIAN forces continue to dig-in at key points around the Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as NATO officials urge ‘immediate dialogue’.
CNN is reporting power has been cut to a Ukrainian naval base and that shots have been heard in the area. The BBC is reporting several loud explosions have been heard in Simferopol, the Crimean capital.
Russian troops are also reportedly digging trenches on the narrow isthmus which connects the Crimean peninsula with the remainder of Ukraine at Armyansk.
NATO urges ‘dialogue’
NATO has called for international observers to monitor Ukraine and says Russia must pull back its forces, while its also seeking talks with Moscow.
``We urge both parties to immediately seek a peaceful resolution through dialogue, through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the OSCE,’’ said a statement read out by NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday.
Winding up almost eight hours of talks, the 28-nation alliance condemned Russia’s military escalation in Crimea and insisted that it ``refrain from any interference elsewhere in Ukraine’’
The emphasis was on a political solution, with no threat of reprisal and instead a call to Moscow to ``engage’’ in talks with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
The allies called also for ``an inclusive political process in Ukraine based on democratic values, respect for human rights, minorities and the rule of law, which fulfils the democratic aspirations of the entire Ukrainian people’’.
An emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels is about to get underway as global powers scramble for a common response and amid talk of a possible extraordinary European Union summit next week.
President Obama has threatened to withdraw from G8 talks and move to revoke Russia’s access to the prestigious economic club as England orders Prince Edward and ministers not to attend the Sachi paralympic games.
The first domino to fall?
Fearing that Europe’s borders were being rewritten by force, world leaders rushed to find a diplomatic solution to the dispute. But there is no denying what has already happened on the ground: Russia captured the Black Sea peninsula on Saturday without firing a shot.
Outrage over Russia’s tactics is mounting in world capitals, with US Secretary of State John Kerry calling on President Vladimir Putin to pull back from ``an incredible act of aggression.’’
He will fly to Ukraine tonight for meetings with the Ukrainian government.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has warned that his crisis-hit country is on the “brink of disaster’’, accusing Russia of declaring war in a bleak appeal to the international community.
“This is the red alert, this is not a threat, this is actually a declaration of war to my country,’’ he told reporters in English, a day after Russia’s parliament approved the deployment of troops to Ukraine.
“If President Putin wants to be the president who started a war between two neighbouring and friendly countries, between Ukraine and Russia, he has reached his target within a few inches. We are on the brink of the disaster.”
As Russian troops mobilised, Ukraine’s navy chief announced he had switched allegiance to the pro-Russian authorities of the flashpoint peninsula of Crimea, a day after he was appointed to the post by interim leader Oleksandr Turchynov.
“I swear to execute the orders of the (pro-Russia) commander-in-chief of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,’’ Denis Berezovsky said in a televised statement from inside the Crimean headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, adding that he “swears allegiance to the residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea’’.
Several hours after this speech, he also defected to join Russian naval forces.
Six warships have since been observed leaving Ukrainian ports.
Meanwhile, Poland has admitted it has begun moving tanks and troops to take up position along its borders with Ukraine - but insists it is part of a ‘previously scheduled exercise’.
Troops stream towards strategic points
A convoy of hundreds of Russian troops has also headed toward the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, and a group of 1000 armed men were blocking the entrance to a unit of Ukraine’s border guards in a tense standoff in the south of the flashpoint Crimea peninsula Sunday, the defence ministry said.
“One thousand armed fighters and around 20 trucks are blocking the perimeter of the 36th brigade of border guards ... in Perevalne,’’ the ministry said in a statement, as tensions remain high after Russia’s parliament approved the deployment of troops in Ukraine. It did not indicate what nationality the armed men were.
”Support us, America!’’ a handful of protesters chanted outside the US Embassy in Kiev. One young girl held up a placard reading:
Witnesses also said Russian soldiers had blocked about 400 Ukrainian marines at a base in the eastern port city of Feodosiya and were calling on them to surrender and give up their arms.
Still, politicians were treading carefully, knowing it was a delicate time for Europe.
“We are on a very dangerous track of increasing tensions,’’ German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. ‘’(But) it is still possible to turn around. A new division of Europe can still be prevented.’’
Ukraine meanwhile called up its military reservists but the new government in Kiev has been powerless to react. Ukraine’s parliament was meeting on Sunday in a closed session.
US Secretary of State John Kerry upped the stakes for Mr Putin by bluntly warning that Moscow risked losing its coveted place among the Group of Eight nations over its deployment of troops in Crimea.
US President Barack Obama branded the Russian parliament’s Saturday vote to allow Mr Putin to send troops into its western neighbour a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty’’.
There has been no sign of ethnic Russians facing attacks in Crimea, where they make up about 60 per cent of the population, or elsewhere in Ukraine. Russia maintains an important naval base on Crimea.
President Barack Obama spoke with Mr Putin by telephone for 90 minutes on Saturday and expressed his “deep concern’’ about “Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,’’ the White House said. Mr Obama warned that Russia’s “continued violation of international law will lead to greater political and economic isolation.’’
The US also said it will suspend participation in “preparatory meetings’’ for the Group of Eight economic summit planned in June at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where the Winter Olympics were held.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius agreed, saying on French radio Europe that planning for the summit should be put on hold. France “condemns the Russian military escalation’’ in Ukraine, and Moscow must “realise that decisions have costs,’’ he said Sunday.
But the US and other Western governments have few options to counter Russia’s military moves.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, holding urgent talks in Brussels, told Russia to put an immediate end to its military activities, saying it “threatens peace and security in Europe’’.
German Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke ominously of preventing “new division of Europe’’ while France and Britain called for negotiations to be organised between Moscow and Kiev, either directly or through the United Nations.
In the most immediate response to Russia’s actions in the country on the eastern edge of Europe, the US and its Western allies pulled out of preparatory meetings this week for the June G8 summit in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Mr Kerry went one step further by warning Putin that “he is not going have a Sochi G8, he may not even remain in the G8 if this continues.
“He may find himself with asset freezes, on Russian business, American business may pull back, there may be a further tumble of the rouble.’’
Sochi was the host of last month’s Winter Olympics, a $57 billion extravaganza which along with the football World Cup in 2018 are meant to highlight Russia’s return to prosperity and global influence under Mr Putin’s rule.
Russia was admitted to the G8 in 1998 in recognition of the late president Boris Yeltsin’s democratic reforms — a spot the Kremlin has coveted as a recognition of its post-Soviet might.
Mr Rasmussen said the allies will “coordinate closely’’ on the situation in Ukraine, which he termed “grave.’’
Ukraine is not a NATO member, meaning the US and Europe are not obligated to come to its defence. But Ukraine has taken part in some alliance military exercises and contributed troops to its response force.
Analysts called Ukraine the most serious crisis to test the West’s relations with Moscow since the 1991 breakup of the USSR.
“The damage to Russia’s relations with the West will be deep and lasting, far worse than after the Russian-Georgian war,’’ Eugene Rumer and Adnre Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in a report.
“Think 1968, not 2008,’’ they said in reference to the Soviet Union’s decision to send tanks into Prague to suppress a pro-democracy uprising.
On the road from Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia has its naval base, to Simferopol on Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists saw 12 military trucks carrying troops, a Tiger vehicle armed with a machine gun and also two ambulances.
Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, announced late Saturday that he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to be at full readiness because of the threat of “potential aggression.’’ He also said he had ordered stepped-up security at nuclear power plants, airports and other strategic infrastructure.
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Taking sides ... Pro-Russian militants station themselves behind a row of shields in Simferopol, Ukraine
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On Crimea, however, Ukrainian troops have offered no resistance.
The new government came to power last week following months of pro-democracy protests against the now-fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his decision to turn Ukraine toward Russia instead of the European Union.
Ukraine’s population of 46 million is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the EU, while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea, a semi-autonomous region that Russia gave to Ukraine in the 1950s, is mainly Russian-speaking.
Pro-Kremlin sentiments in Crimea remained on wide display Sunday — a fact portrayed in detail by Kremlin-controlled television amid a burgeoning Russia media propaganda campaign.
“Crimea is Russia,’’ one elderly lady told AFP in front of a statue of Soviet founder Lenin that dominates a square next to the occupied parliament building in the regional capital Simferopol.
The mood in Kiev was radically different as about 50,000 people massed on Independence Square — the crucible of both the latest wave of demonstrations and the 2004 Orange Revolution that first nudged Kiev on a westward path — in protest at Putin’s latest threat.
“We will not surrender,’’ the huge crowd chanted under grey skies.
news.com.au
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