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Ukraine Protest Leader Yatsenyuk Nominated For PM

February 26, 2014

Pro-European Union protest leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk has been nominated to be prime minister in Ukraine's new government.

Yatsenyuk's nomination was announced in front of tens of thousands of people on Kyiv's Independence Square on February 26.

Independence Square, also known as the Maidan, was the center of three months of antigovernment protests that led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Oleksandr Turchynov, the speaker of the parliament and Ukraine's acting president, has said the legislature is planned to vote on a new national-unity government on February 27.

In another development, the United States has warned Russia to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and not interfere in the country's political crisis.

Earlier on February 26, President Vladimir Putin ordered massive Russian military maneuvers in western Russia.

Moscow also said it was taking measures to defend its Black Sea naval fleet, which is based in Ukraine's Crimea.

In Crimea, anti-Russian protesters stormed the regional parliament, indicating the high tensions in the region.

Kerry: Russian Intervention 'Grave Mistake'

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States strongly supported efforts by Ukraine's former opposition to form a unity government, and said Washington urged 'outside actors in the region' to respect Ukraine's sovereignty.

Separately, NATO defense ministers pledged that the alliance continues to support Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity.

A written statement said a 'sovereign, independent, and stable Ukraine, firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law, is key to Euro-Atlantic security' and Central and Eastern European stability.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russian that it would be making a 'grave mistake' if it used its military to intervene in Ukraine. Kerry told reporters in Washington that Russia had repeatedly spoken against foreign military intervention in Libya, Syria, and other places and it 'would be important for them to heed those warnings as they think about options' in Ukraine.

Kerry also said Washington was considering providing $1 billion in loan guarantees to the new Ukrainian government.

'In terms of the military exercises and rumors of military intervention, it's not just the secretary [Kerry] that feels that would be a detrimental step to Ukraine, and that would be a mistake but it is also, as you probably have seen, the statement by the NATO defense ministers today that was very strong about the risk of military intervention in a political case like this,' State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki explained.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said forces in Russia's Western Military District had been put on high alert, and that exercises involving some 150,000 troops, 880 tanks, 90 aircraft, and 80 ships were being launched.

Shoigu said the drills were not related to the instability in Ukraine. But he made clear Moscow would not permit its Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet to come under threat.

Crimean Fears

In Ukraine's autonomous Crimean republic on February 26, anti-Russian protesters stormed the regional parliament, disrupting a special session on the Ukrainian crisis.

Russian-speakers in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine have been alarmed by last week's political upheaval and a vote by the parliament to revoke a law under which Russian was an official language in predominantly Russian-speaking areas in Ukraine's east and south, such as the Crimea.

Protest leader Vitali Klitschko, who says he'll run to be Ukraine's new president in the May election, offered assurances to Russian-speakers in Crimea that Ukraine's new authorities won't trample on their lives and customs.

'Dear residents of Crimea and Sevastopol, do not allow yourselves to be used in the schemes and plans of political adventurers. Do not allow blood to be shed and the country to be torn apart,' Klitschko said.

'I, Vitali Klitschko, state with full responsibility that there are no mythical radicals and nationalists, you have been made to be scared of, on their way to you and have no plans to interfere with the life and customs in the peninsula.'

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/25278390.html

Copyright (c) 2014. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.