Kyiv, Crimea at Odds Over Planned Referendum
by VOA News March 07, 2014
Ukraine's interim president has signed a decree canceling a planned referendum on Crimea joining Russia, but Crimean officials vow the vote will go ahead.
Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov signed the decree Friday, a day after Crimea's Moscow-backed legislature voted for the peninsula to become part of Russia and scheduled a referendum on the issue for March 16.
Turchynov on Thursday called the planned referendum a 'farce' and accused the Russian military of organizing the vote. He said he and the Ukrainian parliament would protect the country's integrity and sovereignty. He also said that Ukraine's parliament would initiate proceedings to dissolve the Crimean parliament.
Ukraine's interim prime minister said Friday that 'no one in the civilized world' will recognize the referendum's results.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters he wants to 'warn separatists' and others he described as 'traitors of the Ukrainian state' that their decisions are 'unlawful' and 'unconstitutional.' U.S. and European leaders have also called the referendum illegal.
But Crimean officials fired back Friday, saying the vote will go forward.
'Kyiv will not be able to derail the referendum in the Crimea,' said Mikhail Malyshev, chairman of the election commission overseeing the referendum on the peninsula. 'It will be held, as scheduled, on March 16.'
In Moscow, the Speaker of Russia's Upper House of Parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, said Friday that Russian lawmakers will support Crimea's decision if the Ukrainian region decides in a referendum to join Russia, as tens of thousands of people turned out for a rally in the Russian capital to show solidarity with Crimea's pro-Russian authorities.
Meanwhile, a United Nations spokesperson described the recent developments in Ukraine as 'worrying and serious' adding that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges the authorities in Ukraine and Crimea to treat the matter with calm, and consider the implications of hasty actions.
Standoff
Ukraine and Russia have been locked in a tense standoff since Russian forces entered the Crimean peninsula a week ago.
The Reuters news agency Friday quoted an official in Ukraine's border guard service as saying that Russia has been pouring troops into the southern peninsula where Russian forces have seized control, nearly doubling the figure previously given by Ukrainian authorities.
Serhiy Astakhov, an aide to the border guards' commander, said there were now 30,000 Russian soldiers in Crimea, compared to 11,000 permanently based with the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol before the crisis.
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine crisis, but the two leaders found little common ground.
The Reuters news agency Friday quoted an official in Ukraine's border guard service as saying that Russia has been pouring troops into the southern peninsula where Russian forces have seized control, nearly doubling the figure previously given by Ukrainian authorities.
Serhiy Astakhov, an aide to the border guards' commander, said there were now 30,000 Russian soldiers in Crimea, compared to 11,000 permanently based with the Russian Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol before the crisis.
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine crisis, but the two leaders found little common ground.
The White House says Obama told Putin the presence of Russian forces in Crimea is a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. The Kremlin says Putin denounced Ukraine's new government as 'illegitimate' and said Russia cannot 'ignore' calls for help from Ukraine's Russia-leaning east and south.
The White House says Obama also called for direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow that would be mediated by the international community. Obama called for all Russian forces to return to their bases and for international monitors to ensure the safety of Ukrainians, including ethnic Russians.
Earlier Thursday, Obama authorized sanctions, including visa restrictions, against those found to have violated Ukraine's territorial integrity. The EU also took measures against Russia, suspending talks on visas and a new economic agreement.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Friday called the EU's position 'extremely unconstructive,' adding that Russia 'will not accept the language of sanctions and threats' and promising retaliation if the EU imposes sanctions.
Russian news agencies quoted Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying in a televised interview that despite 'profound disagreements' between the two sides, "the hope remains that as a result of dialogue it will be possible to find some common ground," and that Russia and the West do not return to a period of conflict like the Cold War.
Still, Peskov dismissed the idea that Western countries could mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine. He also said that those who were, in his words, "behind the coup in Kyiv," could carry out "purges" in Crimea were they to take control there.
Russia, he added, "cannot remain indifferent, and will not remain indifferent" if a "deadly danger hangs over Russians" anywhere, "especially in neighboring Ukraine."
Putin denies that the forces with no national insignia that are surrounding Ukrainian troops in their bases are under Moscow's command, although their vehicles have Russian military plates. The West has ridiculed this claim.
Witnesses and Western analysts say thousands of Russian military personnel have crossed into Crimea since last week. The reports set off warnings of stiff penalties if Moscow fails to withdraw.
Turkey scrambles jets
The Turkish Air Force scrambled six F-16 fighter jets after a Russian surveillance plane flew parallel along its Black Sea coast, the military said on Friday.
The Thursday incident, reported by Reuters, is the second of its kind this week. The Russian plane remained in international airspace, according to a statement on the website of the military General Staff.
NATO member Turkey forms the southern coastline of the Black Sea.
On Friday, a U.S. navy guided-missile destroyer, the USS Tuxton, passed through Turkey's Bosphorus straits bisecting Istanbul on its way to the Black Sea in what the U.S. military described as a 'routine' deployment scheduled well before the Ukraine crisis.
EU sanctions, Tymoshenko
Pro-Western Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko urged Europe Thursday to take strong action to prevent Ukraine's Crimean peninsula from joining Russia, saying such a move would destabilize the entire continent. The EU took measures against Russia Thursday, suspending talks on visas and a new economic agreement.
Tymoshenko said there was a danger of guerrilla war in Crimea should it be incorporated into Russia and appealed to Germany and others on Friday for immediate economic sanctions against Moscow.
Speaking to Reuters after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Tymoshenko said international measures against Russia had so far been ineffective and called for immediate action to prevent a 'flashpoint.'
'As of today, those instruments that have already been applied by the US and the EU didn't produce any tangible effects,' she said, summarizing her message to Merkel. 'If these instruments do not produce results, there are two options left. To opt for next strongest sanctions, I proposed a set of nonviolent, economic measures.' The alternative, she said, was to give Crimea to Russia.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Friday called the EU's position 'extremely unconstructive,' adding that Russia 'will not accept the language of sanctions and threats' and promising retaliation if the EU imposes sanctions.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said Friday his government is 'prepared to rebuild relations with Russia.' But he said Russia must withdraw its troops, fulfill its agreements with Ukraine and stop supporting separatists in Crimea.
On Capitol Hill, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to provide loan guarantees of $1 billion to Ukraine. That measure now goes to the U.S. Senate. The European Union is prepared to extend a $15 billion bailout to Kyiv if Ukraine can reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Japan, China
Japan endorsed the Western position that the actions of Russia, whose forces have seized control of the Crimean peninsula, constitute 'a threat to international peace and security.' The statement comes shortly after President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
China, often a Russian ally in blocking Western moves in the U.N. Security Council, was more cautious, saying that economic sanctions were not the best way to solve the crisis and avoiding comment on the legality of a Crimean referendum on secession.
Cadets withdrawn
Ukraine summoned home its small contingent of cadets and officers studying at military academies in Russia, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Friday, following Russian military action in Crimea.
A statement on the ministry's website said it had canceled a bilateral agreement on military education between the two states. It said 26 Ukrainians were studying in Russian military academies and would be summoned home.
Ukraine's crisis began when protests erupted in late November after then-President Viktor Yanukovych rejected an economic deal with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia. What began as peaceful protests quickly turned violent, leading to the deaths of more than 80 protesters and charges that the Yanukovych government ordered snipers to shoot protesters. Yanukovych fled Ukraine last month.
Some information for this report provided by Margaret Besheer at the United Nations and Reuters.
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