Ukraine says Russian troops take over airports in Crimea
Ousted Ukraine president says he’s surprised by Putin’s silence
(about 5 hours later)
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Several hundred troops in green camouflage, without insignia and carrying military-style automatic rifles, entered and secured areas of the civilian airport in Crimea’s regional capital of Simferopol early Friday and deployed elsewhere, drawing protests from the new Ukrainian government against what it called a Russian invasion.
KIEV, Ukraine — Toward the end of a self-justifying news conference Friday, Viktor Yanukovych said he was surprised that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “kept silent” about the crisis in Ukraine.
Video taken at the scene showed the troops patrolling inside the airport and standing guard outside. Flights continued to operate; no shots were fired.
In his first public appearance since he fled Kiev a week ago, Yanukovych maintained that he is still president of his country and that the parliament that ousted him is illegitimate. He said Russia, where he is currently staying, is morally obligated to set things right but bluntly rejected the possibility of Russian military interference.
In Kiev, Ukraine’s new interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said the armed men were Russian troops.
So far, Putin has said very little about Ukraine, an indication of continuing uncertainty in Moscow about how to handle the Ukrainian crisis.
The Ukrainian parliament demanded Friday that Russia halt what lawmakers described as violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The legislature called for a U.N. Security Countil meeting on the crisis.
Russia has launched snap military maneuvers near Ukraine’s border and is playing an undefined role in the unrest in Crimea. Moscow has provided a stage for members of its parliament who wish to castigate Ukraine, and shares Yanukovych’s opinion of the new authorities in Kiev.
“What is happening can be called an armed invasion and occupation. In violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provocation for armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign state,” Avakov said.
But Yanukovych’s Russian hosts didn’t offer him the trappings that are customary at a news conference by a visiting head of state. There was no display of protocol, no meetings, no honor guard. The event took place in a trade hall in Rostov-on-Don, a city that is close to Ukraine but a long way from the Kremlin.
Avakov said troops from the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, berthed principally at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, had also secured entrances to the Belbek military airport near the city.
Yanukovych said he had talked to Putin one time on the phone since arriving in Russia and they had agreed to meet when Putin has time free to do so.
“There is still no direct armed conflict. Diplomats should speak,” Avakov said.
The Kremlin announced Friday that Putin had directed his officials to maintain normal trade relations with Ukraine, consult with other countries and the International Monetary Fund over Ukraine’s economy and consider providing humanitarian relief to Crimea.
[READ: To understand Crimea, look back at its complicated history]
These actions, which are not considered provocative, are seen as signs that the Kremlin has given up on Yanukovych and is trying to decide whom to engage with in Kiev.
A spokesman for the Black Sea Fleet denied the reports that its troops are involved in blocking the Belbek airfield, according to the Interfax news agency.
Putin’s silence, according to some reports, could stem from his being caught by surprise last Saturday when a deal for Ukrainians to share government power unraveled. He was portrayed as furious at not having better intelligence, and there are suggestions that some officials in the FSB security service have lost their jobs. Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine was recalled, perhaps not so much as a sign of displeasure with Kiev as with him.
“No subdivision of the Black Sea Fleet has been advanced into the Belbek area, let alone involved in blocking it,” the spokesman said. “Given the unstable situation around the Black Sea Fleet bases in the Crimea, and the places where our service members live with their families, security has been stepped by the Black Sea Fleet’s anti-terror units.”
Late Friday, Putin had conversations with several European leaders about Ukraine.
A Crimea news Web site, Argumenty Nedeli Krym, reported that the armed men carried assault rifles. “As journalists attempted to approach them, one of the servicemen warned that they would shoot to kill,” the Web site said.
“It was emphasized that it is extremely important not to allow further escalation of violence and normalize the situation as soon as possible,” the Russian presidential press service said.
At the Belbek airport, armed men and a military transport truck blocked the entrance. Whoever the men were, they did not appear to be civilian militiamen, but trained soldiers.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, primarily about Crimea, where soldiers in uniforms without insignia seized two airports. “While we were told that they are not engaging in any violation of the sovereignty and do not intend to,” Kerry said afterward, “I nevertheless made it clear that that could be misinterpreted at this moment, and that there are enough tensions that it is important for everybody to be extremely careful not to inflame the situation and not to send the wrong messages.”
When a man who appeared to be a Russian officer with two bodyguards approached them, they spread out in defensive positions, squatted and waited for orders.
In an unscheduled appearance at the White House on Friday afternoon, President Obama said the United States is “deeply concerned” by reports of military movements by the Russian federation inside Ukraine and warned that “there will be costs for any military intervention.”
Dozens of troop transport trucks were scattered along the highway between Sevastopol and Simferopol.
Putin is waiting to see how events shake out and who emerges in a leadership role in Kiev, Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center said Thursday. He said that the Russian president, having lost his bid to draw Ukraine into a new economic union, at least for now, is in a reactive and watchful position.
Seven Russian armored personnel carriers were spotted on the roadside outside Sevastopol showing Russian colors. One of the gunners said they were Russian Federation forces from a base in Russia’s Krasnodar region about 180 miles from Sochi.
Putin almost certainly does not want to see armed conflict in Ukraine, analysts said. With the economy teetering here, Russia can easily choose to apply pressure through trade measures, said Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The mysterious troops at the main airport in Simferopol slowly circulated at the arrival and departure concourses as international flights from Moscow and Istanbul continued as scheduled.
Yanukovych casts blame
The soldiers refused to answer questions from reporters about who they are and what their mission is.
In Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych maintained that he never gave police orders to shoot protesters. Nearly 90 people died over three days of intense clashes last week.
A dozen pro-Russian civilian self defense militiamen stood by, but not with, the soldiers.
Pavel Sheremet, one of the organizers of the protest at Kiev’s Independence Square, or Maidan, tweeted moments later: “He didn’t understand what happened, and probably believes that the people killed themselves.”
In the Balaklava district near Sevastopol, at least 20 men wearing the uniform of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and carrying automatic rifles surrounded a Ukrainian border guard post Friday, initiating a tense standoff with Ukrainian border police inside, Reuters news agency reported.
The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office announced Friday evening that it had made a formal request to Russia for Yanukovych’s extradition to face murder charges.
A man who identified himself as an officer of the Black Sea Fleet told the agency: “We are here . . . so as not to have a repeat of the Maidan.” He referred to the popular uprising at Kiev’s Independence Square that led to the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych last weekend.
Yanukovych insisted that Ukraine must revert to the terms of the Feb. 21 agreement that would have allowed him to stay in power until presidential elections in December and created a cabinet of “national unity.”
In the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych said he would not ask Moscow to intervene militarily in Ukraine, but he stressed that Russia “cannot stand aside” and “cannot be indifferent to the destiny” of his country. He said he “intends to keep fighting for Ukraine’s future” and denounced the new authorities in Kiev as “pro-fascist thugs.”
That agreement went out the window hours later when Yanukovych bolted from Kiev after, he said, his car was fired upon.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his week-long silence on Ukraine with a mixed message. He ordered Russian officials to consult with other nations as well as the International Monetary Fund on means of financial assistance for Ukraine. He also said that efforts to maintain and promote trade between Russia and Ukraine should continue.
“He didn’t learn anything,” said Igor Burakovsky, head of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting here. Going back to the agreement is impossible, he said.
At the same time, Putin said Moscow would consider the possibility of sending humanitarian supplies to Crimea.
“He lost. He’s living in some other reality,” Burakovsky said. “And I cannot understand Mr. Putin. He’s partnering with a guy like this?”
A Ukrainian legislator from Yanukovych’s political party said Friday that the region, officially called the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, is not trying to secede from Ukraine.
Yanukovych, speaking in Russian with Ukrainian flags behind him, blamed the chaos on Western manipulation and said he would not return to his country until his security could be guaranteed.
Nestor Shufrych of the Party of Regions said the speaker of the Crimean regional parliament, Volodymyr Konstantynov, had told him by telephone that Crimea was interested only in broadening the terms of its current autonomous status.
He called his opponents “pro-fascist” and “scum” and said Russia should intervene, although he did not specify how.
“They are not asking for anything more,” Shufrych said. “The autonomous republic’s possible secession from our country is completely out of the question.”
“It would not be correct on my part to say what Russia needs to do,” Yanukovych said. “But Russia cannot stand aside; it cannot be indifferent to the destiny of such a big partner as Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian defense minister, Adm. Ihor Tenyukh, said he planned to go to Crimea later on Friday. The country’s foreign minister has requested talks with his Russian counterpart concerning Crimea.
He said he left the country by making his way by car from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to the Crimean Peninsula, an autonomous region with a largely pro-Russian population.
“We have not received a reply from the Russian side so far,” said the acting foreign minister, Andriy Deshchytsa. “We are open to negotiations and wish an exclusively peaceful resolution of this problem.”
He insisted he had not fled Kiev but left only because of security concerns. His leaving brought on “lawlessness, terror, complete chaos,” he said, although Kiev has been much quieter in his absence.
The revolutionary upheaval in Ukraine’s faraway capital has awakened the separatist dreams of ethnic Russians living on the Crimean Peninsula, where on Thursday pro-Russia gunmen who occupied the regional parliament building were met with an outpouring of support.
“I would like to offer my apologies to the veterans, to the Ukrainian people,” he said, “that I did not have the strength to stop the chaos that is happening in Ukraine right now.”
A group of men dressed in camouflage and armed with rocket-propelled grenades entered the building early Thursday in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, according to local reporters, then barricaded themselves inside and raised the Russian flag on the roof — a succinct answer to warnings from the United States and Europe that Ukraine must remain united and Russia must stand back.
Yanukovych said he was in Rostov-on-Don because he has a friend who lives nearby.
In the freezing weather outside the parliament, separatist fever was running hot, as newly formed self-defense militias paraded under Russian military colors. They shouted thanks to their Soviet grandfathers who had fought against the Germans in World War II in the siege of nearby Sevastopol, a brutal 250-day campaign that left tens of thousands dead and the city in rubble.
Authorities in Switzerland and Austria, meanwhile, moved Friday to block any assets that Yanukovych and his son Oleksandr might have hidden in those countries, news agencies reported. The Swiss launched a corruption investigation against them focused on what prosecutors described as “aggravated money laundering.”
“We want Crimea to return to Russia, pure and simple,” said Igor, a leader of a militia group composed of men who had fought in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. Like other citizen militiamen, he declined to give his last name.
Austria said it was freezing the bank accounts of Viktor and Oleksandr Yanukovych and 16 other people linked to Ukraine’s former government pending a European Union decision on whether to impose sanctions on them.
The demonstrations in Simferopol unnerved the newly appointed government more than 400 miles away in the capital, Kiev.
Lally reported from Moscow. Karen DeYoung contributed to this report from Washington.
“Measures have been taken to counter extremist actions and not allow the situation to escalate into an armed confrontation” in the center of Simferopol, said Avakov, the interim interior minister.
By early morning, police had surrounded the Crimean parliament, but they did nothing to oust the men who had stormed inside. The occupation began to seem like a bit of a show; it was possible the gunmen had already departed. Police officers out front showed no fear of anyone inside and, instead, turned their backs to the building, taking frequent breaks to smoke cigarettes and drink tea.
Meanwhile, thousands of ethnic Russians — who make up about half of Crimea’s population — arrived to demonstrate. They issued a warning to recalcitrant lawmakers here to give in to the crowd’s No. 1 demand: a referendum on, at minimum, whether to allow the Crimean Peninsula — an autonomous state — to become an even more independent region, with its own leadership, which many demonstrators hoped would enshrine Russian language and culture.
Others who came to the parliament clearly wanted much more, calling for Crimea to return to the arms of the Russian motherland. “The criminals had their revolution in Kiev, and now we are having ours in Crimea,” said Alexandr, a member of another self-defense brigade. “We’re Russian, and we belong to Russia.”
For all their fervor, the crowds have not been huge, and it is hard to judge how much support the cause of separatism or a more independent region might have across Crimea. The government that was approved in Kiev on Thursday is stepping gingerly to avoid arousing passions. Pravy Sektor, the right-wing nationalist group, has said it will not send its members to the peninsula, to avoid confrontations.
Moscow has expressed displeasure with the upheavals in Ukraine, questioned the legitimacy of the new government and stressed that the West should keep out of the country’s internal affairs. But although Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a large-scale military exercise in regions bordering other parts of Ukraine, triggering concern about a possible intervention, Russia has not signaled any desire to bring Crimea back into its fold.
Even so, members of separatist militias in Crimea, organized under a political party called the Russian Bloc, have begun to flex their muscles. They threw up checkpoints Thursday along the main highway between Sevastopol and Simferopol, operated by men in mismatched camouflage who stood before a hand-painted sign warning: “Those who approach with a sword will die by the sword.”
Until now, it could be illegal, and sometimes dangerous, to advocate separatism in Ukraine. Now it is all the rage, with groups here demanding that Russia reclaim territory that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gifted to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. The Russian Black Sea naval fleet is berthed primarily in Sevastopol and supports 15,000 sailors and support staff.
Outside the parliament, voices in the crowd shouted, “Take us back!” as demonstrators unfurled a large Russian flag, sang patriotic Russian songs and denounced as “hooligans” the forces behind Yanukovych’s ouster.
Yanukovych, on the run for several days, appeared Thursday in Moscow, where he was apparently granted Russia’s protection.
Asked what he thought would happen next, a Russian Bloc politician from Sevastopol, Gennadiy Basov, said, “I have no idea.”
Basov said the pro-Russia militias in the Crimea “are prepared to defend our homes and families” from any forces sent by the central government in Kiev.
“Everything coming out of Kiev is illegal,” Basov said.
He and others outside the parliament, stoked on inflammatory Russian TV news shows that repeatedly broadcast images of protesters in Kiev hurling gasoline bombs and advancing with clubs, warned that if they let their guard down, hordes of “fascists” would descend on Crimea.
“They would come to steal, rape and kill,” one man said.
A woman who declined to give her name but described herself as “a Russian housewife from Simferopol” boasted that the demonstrators here were peaceful and unafraid to show their faces — ignoring for a moment that the protesters had gathered to support unknown gunmen inside the parliament.
In Kiev, Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukraine’s interim president, warned Moscow that any movement of military personnel off Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol “will be viewed as military aggression.”
Speaking in the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on Thursday, Turchynov said, “Ukrainian enemies should not try to destabilize the situation, should not encroach on our independence, sovereignty and territory.”
