Russia agrees to Ukraine monitoring as Crimea airport seized
Armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, stand guard, with Ukrainian servicemen seen in the foreground, at a military airbase, in the Crimean town of Belbek near Sevastopol March 22, 2014. ― Reuters picKYIV, March 23 ― Russia agreed to international monitors arriving in Ukraine as pro-Kremlin forces seized a military airport in Crimea and ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych’s backers protested in the country’s east.
While talks about the monitors with Russia were “difficult,” their presence may help avoid escalation, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Kyiv today. The mission will initially have 100 monitors, which may increase by 400 across Ukraine, the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said yesterday.
The six-month mission is meant to cool tensions in the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. As Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday completed the annexation of Crimea, which isn’t part of the OSCE mandate, the two sides exchanged salvos of sanctions, raising concern about further escalation. US President Barack Obama will meet allies during a European visit starting March 24.
“It is important that we in the free world not accept the occupation of Crimea, that we continue to resist, and that we do not return to business as usual with the Putin regime until such time as the occupation of Crimea ends,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in Kyiv today at a news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “The consequences of these actions will be felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine.”
Switching flags
Fewer than 2,000 of the more than 18,000 Ukrainian troops in Crimea have said they want to leave, Russian state-run news service RIA Novosti reported, citing the Russian Defense Ministry. Russian flags have been raised over 54 of 67 Ukrainian ships and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his forces to allow the orderly exit of Ukrainian troops, RIA said.
Pro-Russia forces seized Belbek airport and arrested its Ukrainian commander, Yuliy Mamchur, he said by text message. There were no injuries, he said. About 100 Ukrainian troops were forced from their Novofyodorovka base in Crimea earlier today, Vladyslav Seleznyov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, said by telephone today.
Belbek is the main airport for the city of Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based. The main civilian airport in Crimea is in Simferopol.
If Russian troops enter east Ukraine, it “would trigger far-reaching consequences in a broad range of economic areas,” UK Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters yesterday after a summit in Brussels. “That must include the key areas like finance, like the military, like energy.”
EU accord
Ukraine’s government, which yesterday signed the political chapters of an association accord with the EU, discussed military cooperation with European partners, Yatsenyuk said in Kyiv today.
With Putin’s annexation of Crimea completed, attention shifted to whether Russia would seek to claim other parts of Ukraine. White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US was watching events on Russia’s frontier with Ukraine.
“The Russians have stated that they are intending military exercises,” Rice said at a briefing yesterday in Washington. “Obviously, given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.”
Alarms raised
The presence of Russian forces near Ukraine’s border and protests by pro-Russian activists in the east and south of Ukraine have raised alarms that Putin may push further into the second-most-populous former Soviet republic. European leaders signaled that Russia may face further repercussions if it doesn’t stop what they see as destabilizing actions.
Yanukovych supporters rallied in the eastern city of Donetsk today, urging the Kremlin-backed leader’s return and a referendum to give Ukraine’s regions wider power. More than 2,000 people gathered in the city of more than 1 million, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Russian border, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news service.
“I’m for an integrated Ukraine, but with a federal form of governance,” said Mykola, 58, a retired mining engineer, who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisal. “The East and West of Ukraine for sure should have a common defense, common science, common culture, but most of the region’s revenues should be kept within this region.”
“New realities”
The demands echo those from Russia, which urged its neighbour to adopt a federal constitution that guarantees political and military neutrality, grants powers to the regions, and make Russian a second official language. There’s no indication it would be acceptable to the Ukrainian government or to its Western supporters.
Russia welcomes the OSCE’s decision to send monitors, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a website statement today. Their mandate doesn’t extend to Crimea, which reflects “the new political and legal realities.”
Russia’s moves to claim Crimea highlight Putin’s disregard for the post-Cold War security order in Europe, according to Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“There’s nothing Vladimir Putin would rather do than to de-legitimize the post-Cold War order, expose the transatlantic partnership as a sham, and deeply degrade US leadership in the world,” Kuchins told reporters yesterday. “He’s already gone pretty far down that path in the past three weeks.”
Leaders’ meeting
Leaders of the US, the EU, China, Japan and other nations meet in The Hague starting on March 24, and Obama plans to use the gathering to mobilize opposition to Russia’s incursion into Crimea.
While ruling out military action, Obama has joined European leaders in warning of further consequences if Russia fails to yield. The US is focusing on diplomatic and economic tools to defuse the crisis, Rice told reporters.
The EU, moving more slowly than the US on sanctions, yesterday expanded to 51 individuals its list of Russians and Ukrainians punished with asset freezes and travel bans.
The US on March 20 widened its list of people targeted to 27 Russian officials and four Ukrainians. In addition, Obama that day authorized potential future penalties on Russian industries, including financial services, energy, metals and mining, defense and engineering.
Billionaires targeted
Those targeted by the US include billionaire Gennady Timchenko, a co-founder of oil trader Gunvor Group Ltd., and Arkady Rotenberg, a former judo partner of Putin whose companies won more than US$7 billion (RM23.15 million) in contracts for the Winter Olympics.
Russia’s benchmark Micex Index of stocks fell 1 per cent yesterday, the most among emerging markets, to 1,307.34 by the close, and the yield on government bonds due February 2027 jumped 12 basis points, the most in a week, to 9.42 per cent.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry is proposing retaliatory steps, as “unanswered sanctions may whet appetites to impose new measures,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told lawmakers. The country reserves the right to impose sanctions following the EU’s decision to expand its list, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement today.
Putin says ethnic Russians in the region are at risk from the government in Kyiv, a claim that Ukraine denies. Russia backs the recently appointed administration in Crimea that held the disputed March 16 ballot, in which almost 97 per cent backed joining Russia.
Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said his country doesn’t accept Russia’s takeover and won’t allow Russian forces on its mainland. He said yesterday that Ukraine would submit a plan to demilitarise Crimea.
“Ukraine will do everything in order to free the occupied territories,” Turchynov told reporters in Kyiv after a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. ― Bloomberg
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