Russia draws first blood, one Ukrainian soldier killed
Russia draws first blood, one Ukrainian soldier killed
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Category: World
Written by McClatchy News Tribune
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KYIV, Ukraine—Apparent Russian snipers drew first blood on Tuesday in the three-week standoff over Crimea, killing a Ukrainian soldier when they opened fire on a Ukrainian military center in Simferopol, Crimea’s capital.
The shooting death, the first in what had been a tense, but not deadly, Russian occupation of the Black Sea peninsula, came not long after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty to annex Crimea, to a standing ovation from his Parliament, and immediately prompted Ukrainian officials to change their rules of engagement, giving their troops the right to use weapons to defend themselves against Russian aggression.
At another Ukrainian military base at the Crimean town of Perevalne, a captain told McClatchy that his force, battle-tested in Iraq and Kosovo, finally had received orders from Kyiv after three weeks of being surrounded by Russian forces.
“Be brave, stand firm,” he said he’d been told by the interim president of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, in a phone conversation. “If the Russians spill one drop of Ukrainian blood, the world will be with us.”
The captain declined to be identified by name because he fears for the safety of his family.
Details of the shooting were sketchy, with news outlets describing the dead man as an officer in the Ukrainian military’s main mapping and navigation unit, but a Defense Ministry statement described him as a soldier. Another person, whom the Defense Ministry statement described as a captain, was reported seriously wounded.
The Ukrainian News web site said that an invading force made up of Russian soldiers and Crimean “self-defense forces” stormed the center about 3 p.m., one hour after Putin’s speech, and told the Ukrainians they were under arrest and took away their papers. When the shooting occurred was unclear.
The shooting death came one day after the United States and Europe imposed what Ukrainians consider laughably weak economic sanctions on a handful of Russian officials in retaliation for Russia’s seizure of Crimea. Ukrainian officials made clear the killing had altered their view of the situation.
“It’s not a political conflict,” said Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “It’s a military conflict.”
His words came after Putin and Crimea’s new leader, Sergey Aksyonov, signed the treaty in a ceremony that took place at 2 p.m. in Kyiv. The treaty would create not just one but two new republics that would join the Russian Federation.
One, of course, would be Crimea. The other would create a new republic out of Sevastopol, the sprawling port city that is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and a favorite retirement spot for former Soviet and Russian military.
In Photo: Unidentified armed men search an area close to an Ukrainian military unit in Simferopol, Crimea, on Tuesday. Gunfire at the military facility in the capital of separatist Crimea killed one serviceman and a member of a local self-defense brigade, a police spokeswoman was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. (AP)
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