Ousted Ukrainian Leader, Reappearing in Russia, Says, ‘Nobody Deposed Me’

International New York Times |28 Feb. 2014

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Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, appeared at a news conference in Russia on Friday, the first time he has been seen since last Saturday. Credit Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, appeared Friday at a news conference in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, his first public appearance since he disappeared in Kiev a week ago. Before Friday he had been heard from only in a video from his political stronghold in eastern Ukraine and in a written statement in which he declared that he remained the lawfully elected leader of Ukraine.

“Nobody deposed me,” he said in an opening statement Friday, speaking in Russian. “I had to leave Ukraine because there was a direct and imminent threat to my life.” He said Ukraine had been taken over by nationalist thugs, with the assistance of the West, and called for a restoration of the government he once led.

Mr. Yanukovych’s appearance here has been as shrouded in mystery as his whereabouts over the last week, with various reports that he had been in Russia for several days already. It seemed notable that the news conference was not being held in a Russian government building but rather in the Vertol Expo center, a new shopping mall, hotel and exhibition center a fair distance from the city center. There was an exhibition of tractors and other farm equipment inside and outside the center.

Police officers were posted outside the entrance to the wing where Mr. Yanukovych was speaking, allowing only journalists to enter and pass through metal detectors at the door. Among the officers inside were several plainclothes agents who appeared to be part of Russia’s diplomatic security service, a protection offered to all visiting foreign officials.

The conference hall was packed with dozens of journalists and television crews. Four Ukrainian flags had been placed behind a large wooden desk.

Earlier on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia broke his silence on the crisis in Ukraine with a statement instructing his government to “continue contacts with partners in Kiev” and to work with international bodies to provide financial assistance for the country.

In the statement, Mr. Putin also said that authorities in the restive Crimean region of Ukraine had appealed for humanitarian aid and that he had directed the Russian government to consider the request, “including possibilities for the Russian regions to provide assistance.'’

The three-paragraph directive made no mention of Mr. Yanukovych. Nor did Mr. Putin make any reference to the tense security situation in Crimea, where pro-Russian demonstrators have seized regional government buildings and officials are threatening to break away from the central government in Kiev.

Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said Friday that Russian forces had seized two airports in Crimea. In a statement on his Facebook page, Mr. Avakov said he considered the actions “armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms.”

Until Friday, Mr. Putin had made no public remarks on the turmoil in Ukraine, fostering confusion and unease over Russia’s policy, even as the crisis in Ukraine moved closer to Russia’s border and raised concerns about Ukraine’s geopolitical and economic impact on its neighbor. Russia could stand to lose what it considers a place that is not only within its sphere of influence but part of its political, social and historical identity.

For now, Mr. Putin’s strategy for retaining Russia’s influence in a country where the Kremlin has profound interests, from its largest foreign military base to gas pipelines that important to its economy, remains unknown and full of risks, even as events are forcing Moscow’s hand.

Mr. Yanukovych’s appeal for Russia “to secure my personal safety” made it clear that the Kremlin has quietly provided at least tacit assistance to a humiliated leader who has been abandoned even by his own political supporters.

The seizure of the regional Parliament building in Crimea by masked gunmen vowing loyalty to Russia, and not Ukraine, has renewed fears that Mr. Putin could be provoked into a military intervention like the one in 2008, when Russian troops poured into Georgia to defend a breakaway region, South Ossetia, that it now recognizes as an independent country.

Russian officials have dismissed such fears as absurd, but at the same time, Mr. Putin ordered a surprise military exercise involving 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s doorstep that was clearly intended as a palpable warning about Russia’s preparedness. It prompted warnings in return from NATO and the United States that Russia should do nothing provocative and respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Mr. Putin has a number of options to influence affairs in Ukraine short of an armed intervention. Ukraine’s economy is entwined with that of Russia, which is by far its greatest trading partner, and Ukraine’s heavy industry is hugely dependent on Russian gas. And the Kremlin can inflame separatist tensions almost at will, if it so desires, destabilizing the country. Perhaps Mr. Putin’s most effective weapon, though, is time, sitting back and watching as the West takes ownership of an economy on the brink of collapse.

Officially, Russia continues to insist that the turmoil in Ukraine is an internal affair and that neither it nor the United States and Europe should meddle. Events, however, are quickly overtaking that position.

Mr. Yanukovych’s flight has made it more difficult for the Kremlin to sustain a detached response, despite deep reservations among Russian officials over Mr. Yanukovych’s handling of the crisis and the collapse of his authority last weekend. That ambivalence was clear on Thursday when Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, declined to confirm or deny that Russia had extended protection to Mr. Yanukovych.

Sergei A. Markov, a political strategist who advises the Kremlin, said: “I think Putin hates Yanukovych. But what should he do for a legally elected president who asks to come to Russia?”

With Mr. Yanukovych declaring that he is still the lawfully elected leader of Ukraine and with Parliament approving a new interim government, Russia now faces the prospect of being the host of a president in exile. Mr. Markov said that Mr. Yanukovych’s presence in Russia would amount to “asylum by fact,” adding that he thought Mr. Yanukovych should have stayed in Ukraine and called on the military and security forces to rally behind him in defiance of the new leaders in Kiev.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement on Thursday complaining that an agreement brokered by three European foreign ministers only a week ago was not being honored. It insisted that the accord, which would have left Mr. Yanukovych in the presidency until new elections in December, serve as the basis of a negotiated agreement, even as the Europeans and the United States moved to recognize the legitimacy of the new interim government that was formed after Mr. Yanukovych’s escape from Kiev.

“We are convinced that only such a constitutional framework can ensure the interests of all political forces and all regions of Ukraine,” the ministry’s statement said.

In essence, the statement suggested that Russia still recognized Mr. Yanukovych as the country’s leader, though no officials have explicitly said so. They have denounced the new interim leaders as radicals riding to power in an armed fascist coup.

In the absence of a clear statement of Russia’s intent, the perception of its strategy has been shaped by rumors, by strident coverage on state news media and by statements of Russian lawmakers vowing solidarity with Ukraine’s ethnic Russians and questioning whether Crimea, which the Soviet Union ceded to Ukraine in 1954, should rightfully be Russia’s.

The military exercise, which began in earnest on Thursday, added an ominous element of volatility. Aleksandr Golts, an independent military analyst in Moscow, said the exercise theoretically could disguise a more general mobilization of Russia’s military in case a conflict erupted over Ukraine.

“In my view it’s very bad, even if there are no plans to use the military, that maneuvers are being held with the goal of testing the nerves of others,” he said.

To critics, especially in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s hand is seen in many of the most disturbing turns in the unfolding situation, including visits there by Russian lawmakers; reports of Russian passports being handed out to Crimea’s citizens, as happened in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; and the mysterious seizure of the Parliament building in Crimea. They see the downward spiraling of events as evidence that Mr. Putin intends to splinter the country and retake Crimea as Russian territory.

“We’re not interfering,” Mr. Peskov, the president’s spokesman, said on Thursday. “We’re standing on this position.”