Tensions Spike After Russians Fire on Ukrainian Troops, Killing 1
by VOA News March 18, 2014
Ukraine's prime minister said today that the conflict in Crimea has entered a military phase and accused Russia of commiting a 'war crime' by firing on Ukrainian servicemen.
Ukrainian officials say one soldier was killed. Ukrainian servicemen in Crimea have now been authorized to use their weapons in order to defend their lives.
'The conflict is moving from a political one to a military one because of Russian soldiers,' Arseny Yatsenyuk said at a meeting at Ukraine's defense ministry. 'Today, Russian soldiers began shooting at Ukrainian servicemen and this is a war crime without any expiry under a statute of limitations.'
Earlier Tuesday, a military spokesman said a Ukrainian officer was wounded in a shooting at a military facility outside Simferopol, the Crimean capital, but it was unclear who was behind the shooting.
Absorbing Crimea
The incident comes on the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty to make the Black Sea peninsula part of Russia, a move the White House immediately condemned.
'This action...will never be recognized by the United States and the international community,'' White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Carney said the administration is preparing to expand sanctions the U.S. imposed on Monday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Western sanctions were unacceptable and would not remain without consequences, the ministry said Tuesday.
Lavrov and Kerry spoke by telephone after the treaty signing.
U.S. President Barack Obama has invited G7 allies to meet next week to consider further response to the Crimea crisis. The meeting will take place on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit at The Hague that Obama plans to attend.
The Kremlin said on its website that Crimea 'shall be deemed accepted in the Russian Federation from the date of signing the treaty.'
The treaty was signed shortly after Putin told Russia's parliament in a televised address that Crimea has always been an 'inalienable' part of Russia, and a day after he signed a decree recognizing the peninsula as 'a sovereign and independent country.'
The Russian parliament is expected to begin the process of ratifying the treaty within days, the Itar-Tass news agency cited a senior lawmaker as saying.
'We will begin ratification soon. This will happen in the next few days,'' lower house vice-speaker Alexander Zhukov said.
Ukraine's foreign ministry said Tuesday that it does not recognise the treaty.
The Black Sea peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine in a referendum Sunday that the U.S. and the European Union declared illegal.
Crimean officials said the final ballot count showed 97 percent of voters favoring independence from Ukraine.
However, senior White House officials told reporters they have concrete evidence that some ballots in the referendum were pre-marked when they arrived in cities before the vote.
International reaction
Vice President Joe Biden called Russia's move a 'land grab' and said Washington is committed to defending the security of its NATO allies on Russian borders.
Biden flew from Poland to Lithuania today after meeting with Polish leaders and the leader of Estonia. Tomorrow he'll meet with the presidents of Lithuania and Latvia.
Biden said the United States is considering sending troops for war games in the Baltic states bordering Russia, a move aimed at reassuring NATO allies alarmed by Moscow's actions regarding Crimea.
In Britain, Foreign Secretary William Hague also condemned Russia's actions.
'The crisis in Ukraine is the most serious test of European security in the 21st century so far,' Hague said.
Rising concern
Putin also declared Kyiv the cradle of Russian civilization and expressed hope Russia and Ukraine can continue to co-exist.
But with reports of several incursions by Russian or Russian-backed armed personnel in eastern Ukraine, outside of Crimea, there is rising concern throughout the country whether Russia will be satisfied with only annexing Crimea.
Ukraine's prime minister Yatsenyuk says there is 'convincing evidence' Russian special services are organizing unrest in the eastern part of the country.
'There are saboteurs who have been arrested,' Yatsenyuk said. 'There is no place in Ukraine for these warmongers.'
Some Ukrainians tell VOA their families, even in the central part of the country, are stocking up on bread, water and medication, due to concerns tensions will escalate in the next several months amid worries there could be war.
Putin says Moscow has no designs on other parts of the former Soviet republic.
In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gifted the Crimean peninsula to the Ukrainian republic, then part of the USSR.
Ukraine not seeking NATO membership
Ukraine's new pro-Western leadership is not seeking membership in NATO, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said on Tuesday, in comments intended to reassure Russia and Ukraine's large number of Russian-speakers.
'Strictly with a view to maintaining Ukraine's unity, the question of joining NATO is not on the agenda,'' Yatsenyuk, who normally speaks in Ukrainian, said in a 10-minute televised appeal delivered in Russian. 'The country will be defended by a strong, modern Ukrainian army.''
Yatsenyuk also said decentralisation of power was a key plank of government policy, adding Kyiv's efforts to integrate with Europe would take into account the interests of Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial east.
Some information in this report was contribued by VOA's Steve Herman in Kyiv and by Reuters.
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