News.Kyiv.Me.

Crimeans vote on joining Russia

Moscow pours in troops, rejects accusations that ballot is illegal ♦ EU, US say will not accept outcome of referendum, prepare sanctions — SIMFEROPOL — Crimeans voted in a referendum yesterday on whether to break away from Ukraine and join Russia, with Kyiv accusing Moscow of pouring forces into the peninsula and warning separatist leaders “the ground will burn under their feet”. Caught in an East-West crisis reminiscent of the Cold War, Kyiv said Russia’s build-up of forces in the Black Sea region was in “crude violation” of an international treaty, and announced plans to arm and train 20,000 members of a newly-created National Guard to defend the nation. Western countries say the vote, which is likely to favour union with Russia for a region which has a Russian-speaking majority, is illegal and the United States warned Moscow to expect sanctions.

“The referendum is illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognised,” the European Council and European Commission presidents said in a joint statement. EU foreign ministers “will evaluate the situation tomorrow in Brussels and decide on additional measures” against Moscow, they said. The US too told Russia yesterday that it would not accept the results of Crimea’s referendum on seceding from Ukraine and it continued to urge a political resolution on Moscow, a senior US State Department official said. The official, describing a telephone conversation between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday, urged Russia to back constitutional reform in Ukraine that would protect the rights of minorities such as Crimea’s Russian-speaking population.

Kerry also said Russia must pull back its forces to their bases and raised strong concerns about Russian military activities in Ukraine’s Kherson oblast on Saturday, as well as continuing provocations in eastern Ukraine, the official said. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said the referendum complied with international law and respected the will of the Crimean people, while his foreign ministry said it had agreed with the United States to seek a solution to the crisis through constitutional reform. In Kyiv, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk threatened dire consequences for Crimean politicians who had called the vote, saying separatist “ringleaders” wanted to destroy Ukrainian independence “under the cover of Russian troops”. “We will find all of them — if it takes one year, two years — and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their feet,” he told a cabinet meeting.

Yatseniuk had just returned from a US trip where he won expressions of moral support but no offers of weapons. Kyiv’s pro-European rulers, who took power after last month’s fall of Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich to popular unrest, have been as powerless as Western governments to prevent the referendum or build up of Russian forces on Ukrainian territory. At a polling booth at a school in Simferopol, the Crimean regional capital, dozens of people lined up outside to cast their ballots early. “I have voted for Russia,” said Svetlana Vasilyeva, 27, a veterinary nurse. “This is what we have been waiting for. We are one family and we want to live with our brothers.” Vasilyeva voiced fears common among some of Ukraine’s native Russian-speakers about the consequences of Yanukovich’s downfall after protests in which over 100 people were killed. “We want to leave Ukraine because Ukrainians told us that we are people of a lower kind. How can you stay in such a country?” she said.

But ethnic Tatars — who make up 12 per cent of Crimea’s population — said they would boycott the vote despite promises by the regional authorities to give them financial aid and proper land rights. “This is my land. This is the land of my ancestors. Who asked me if I want it or not? Who asked me?” said Shevkaye Assanova, a Crimean Tatar in her 40s. “For the rest of my life I will be cursing those who brought these people here. I don’t recognise this at all. I curse all of them.” Crimea’s 1.5 million voters have two options: Union with Russia or giving their region, which is controlled by pro-Kremlin politicians, the broad right to determine its own path and choose relations with whom it wants — including Moscow. Russia has the right to keep forces on the Black Sea peninsula, including at its naval base in the port of Sevastopol, under a treaty signed after Ukraine gained independence from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991.

But Ukrainian acting defence minister Ihor Tenyukh accused Moscow of going far beyond an agreed limit on servicemen — which he said was 12,500 for 2014. “Unfortunately, in a very short period of time, this 12,500 has grown to 22,000. This is a crude violation of the bilateral agreements and is proof that Russia has unlawfully brought its troops onto the territory of Crimea,” he said. This figure had risen from 18,400 on Friday. “Let me say once again that this is our land and we will not be leaving it,” he told Interfax news agency. Tenyukh later said that the defence ministries in Kyiv and Moscow had declared a truce until March 21 during which Russian forces, who have been arriving by boat and helicopter, would leave Ukrainian military facilities untouched.

Many Crimeans hope union with Russia will bring better pay and make them citizens of a country capable of asserting itself on the world stage. But others see the referendum as a land grab by the Kremlin from Ukraine, whose new rulers want to move the country towards the European Union and away from Russia’s sway. Putin defended the vote in a phone call yesterday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying it complied with international law, including Article 1 of the UN Charter which states the principle of self-determination of peoples. “It was emphasised that Russia will respect the choice of the Crimean people,” a Kremlin statement said. Putin has said he must protect the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine from “fascists” in Kyiv who ousted Yanukovich. Western powers largely dismiss his characterisation of the new authorities as successors of Nazi-allied Ukrainian forces which fought the Soviet Red Army in World War Two. — Reuters