Crimea barred to observers

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This article was published 09/03/2014 (4259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing no signs of heeding western calls to ease the standoff in Crimea, where pro-Kremlin forces stepped up their takeover of the Ukrainian region preparing for a separatist referendum.

Gunmen fired warning shots as international observers tried to enter Crimea for a third day and a Ukrainian border patrol plane came under fire that didn’t cause injuries. TV5 reported a military agency in the regional capital Simferopol was captured and 70 unidentified trucks entered the city.

Ukraine is struggling to keep hold of Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, after pro-Russian forces took control of it in the wake of Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster as president. Western officials say they’re concerned the situation in the peninsula, where the U.S. estimates there now are 20,000 Russian troops confronting a smaller Ukrainian military force, threatens to explode at any moment.

“Russia and Ukraine, right now, are one nervous 20-year- old soldier’s mistake away from something very, very bad happening that could spin out of control,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. There are about 12,000 Ukrainian troops in Crimea, he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the situation by phone Saturday, agreeing “intensive contacts” were necessary to resolve the crisis, according to a statement by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow. Kerry said on Thursday in Rome he had presented Lavrov with ideas to take to Putin.

As Putin opened the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi on Friday, lawmakers in Moscow pledged to accept the results of a March 16 referendum on Crimea joining Russia.

The peninsula, where Russian-speakers comprise a majority, will join Russia once parliament in Moscow passes the necessary legislation, and there’s nothing the West can do to stop the process, according to Sergei Tsekov, the deputy speaker of Crimea’s parliament.

“There’s no comeback, and the U.S. or Europe can’t impede us,” Tsekov said by phone Friday from Moscow, where he met Russian officials to discuss the region’s future. “Crimea won’t be part of Ukraine anymore. There are no more options.”

U.S. President Barack Obama had a phone conversation with French counterpart Francois Hollande Saturday and agreed there’s no legal basis for the referendum and Russia should withdraw its forces, according to an emailed statement from Hollande’s office.

Obama and Hollande are seeking direct dialog between Ukraine and Russia and the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the statement.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin met Saturday with Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Moscow. The two discussed the countries’ relations in a “frank atmosphere,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

Germany wants to “mobilize an as-broad-as-possible international coalition” to counter Russian threats over Ukraine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing unidentified people from the Foreign Ministry.

A Ukrainian division at Shcholkino was stormed by Russian soldiers, who beat servicemen, confiscated their mobile phones and forced them and their families to leave, Ukraine’s border-guard service said in a statement. Eleven border-guard units are currently being blocked, according to a separate statement.

The service later said 100 Russian soldiers and 50 other men took control of the ferry across the Kerch Strait to Russia, stopping border guards from inspecting 31 trucks arriving in Crimea. Armed men attacked and entered a Ukrainian base in Sevastopol, the Defence Ministry in Kyiv said on Friday. The men withdrew after talks, according to TV5.

Gunmen on Saturday blocked observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from entering Crimea to monitor events there for a third day, Tatyana Baeva, a spokeswoman for the 57-state organization, which includes Russia and the U.S., said by phone from Vienna. Nobody was injured as warning shots were fired, she said. Russia isn’t taking part in the mission.

The plan to determine Crimea’s status through a vote, which Ukraine’s new leaders and western powers consider illegal and unconstitutional, heightens tensions in the worst dispute between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. Ukraine will do its best to resolve conflict in Crimea peacefully, Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya said Saturday.

Obama and his European counterparts have called on Putin to de-escalate. The Russian leader says he’s defending Ukraine’s ethnic Russians, who make up 59 per cent of Crimea’s population.

The U.S. and European allies will move together to impose sanctions if there isn’t a quick resolution, Obama said at the White House on Thursday. In a phone conversation, Lavrov warned Kerry against “hasty and ill-considered moves that can damage Russian- American relations, especially sanctions, which would inevitably boomerang on the United States,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

The Russian Defense Ministry is considering suspending visits of international inspectors as part of strategic arms reductions treaty obligations, Interfax reported Saturday, citing an unidentified high-ranking military diplomat.

To steady Ukraine’s finances, the EU plans to provide an 11-billion-euro (US$15.3 billion) aid package and is prepared to drop tariffs on about 85 per cent of the bloc’s imports of Ukrainian goods, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said during a visit to the U.S.

— Bloomberg News