Kremlin Deploys Military in Ukraine, Prompting Protest by U.S.

International New York Times | 1 March 2014

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SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Russian armed forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, as the Russian Parliament granted President Vladimir V. Putin broad authority to use military force in response to the political upheaval that dislodged a Kremlin ally and installed a new, staunchly pro-Western government. 

Russian troops stripped of identifying insignia but using military vehicles bearing the license plates of Russia’s Black Sea force swarmed the major thoroughfares of Crimea, encircled government buildings, closed the main airport and seized communication hubs, solidifying what began on Friday as a covert effort to control the largely pro-Russian region. 

In Moscow, Mr. Putin convened the upper house of Parliament to grant him authority to use military force to protect Russian citizens and soldiers not only in Crimea but throughout Ukraine. Both actions — military and parliamentary — were a direct rebuff to President Obama, who on Friday pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Armed men guard a government building in Simferopol, in the Crimea region of Ukraine on Saturday. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Mr. Obama accused Russia of a “breach of international law” and condemned the country’s military intervention, calling it a “clear violation” of Ukrainian sovereignty. 

In Crimea, scores of heavily armed soldiers fanned out across the center of the regional capital, Simferopol. They wore green camouflage uniforms with no identifying marks, but spoke Russian and were clearly part of a Russian mobilization. In Balaklava, a district of Sevastopol, a long column of military vehicles blocking the road to a border post bore Russian plates.

Large pro-Russia crowds rallied in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv, where there were reports of violence. In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, fears grew within the new provisional government that separatist upheaval would fracture the country just days after a three-month period of civil unrest had ended with the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanukovych, the Kremlin ally who fled to Russia.

In addition to the risk of open war, it was a day of frayed nerves and set-piece political appeals that recalled ethnic conflicts of past decades in the former Soviet bloc, from the Balkans to the Caucasus.

Mr. Obama, who had warned Russia on Friday that “there will be costs” if it violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, spoke with Mr. Putin for 90 minutes on Saturday, according to the White House, and urged Mr. Putin to withdraw his forces back to its bases in Crimea and to stop “any interference” in other parts of Ukraine. 

In a statement afterward, the White House said the United States would suspend participation in preparatory meetings for the G8 economic conference to be held in Sochi, Russia, in June and warned of “greater political and economic isolation” for Russia. 

The Kremlin offered its own description of the call, in which it said Mr. Putin spoke of “a real threat to the lives and health of Russian citizens” in Ukraine and warned that “in case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas.”

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron said that “there can be no excuse for outside military intervention” in Ukraine. 

At the United Nations, the Security Council held an emergency meeting on Ukraine for the second time in two days. The American ambassador, Samantha Power, called for an international observer mission, urged Russia to “stand down” and took a dig at the Russian ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, on the issue of state sovereignty, which the Kremlin frequently invokes in criticizing the West over its handling of Syria and other disputes.

The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also spoke with Mr. Putin on Saturday and described himself as “gravely concerned” and urged Mr. Putin to negotiate with officials in Kiev. 

Mr. Yanukovych’s refusal, under Russian pressure, to sign new political and free trade agreements with the European Union last fall set off the civil unrest that last month led to the deaths of more than 80 people, and ultimately unraveled his presidency. The country’s new interim government has said it will revive those accords. 

Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said at a briefing in Kiev on Saturday evening that he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces “to full combat readiness.” A Ukrainian military official in Crimea said Ukrainian soldiers had been told to “open fire” if they came under attack by Russian troops or others.

Officials in Kiev demanded that Russia pull back its forces, and confine them to the military installations in Crimea that Russia has long leased from Ukraine.

“The presence of Russian troops in Crimea now is unacceptable,” said acting Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk. Decrying the Russian deployment as a “provocation,” he added, “We call on the government of the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its troops, return to the place of deployment and stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine.”

Sergey Tigipko, a former deputy prime minister of Ukraine and one-time ally of Mr. Yanukovych, and still an influential member of Parliament, said he flew to Moscow in hopes of brokering a truce.

The political drama began in the morning, when the pro-Russia prime minister of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that he had sole control over the military and the police, and appealed to Mr. Putin for Russian help in safeguarding the region. He also said a public referendum on independence would be held on March 30.

The Kremlin quickly issued a statement saying that Mr. Aksyonov’s plea “would not be ignored,” and within hours the upper chamber of Russia’s Parliament had authorized military action.

Rostov-on-Don

The authorization cited Crimea, where Russia maintains important military installations, but covered the use of Russian forces in the entire “territory of Ukraine,” and its time frame extended indefinitely, “until the normalization of the sociopolitical environment in the country.” Parliament also asked Mr. Putin to withdraw Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

By nightfall, the scores of armed men in uniform who first appeared on Crimea’s streets on Friday had melted away from the darkened center of Simferopol, vanishing as mysteriously as they arrived. 

For the new government in Kiev, the tensions in Crimea created an even more dire and immediate emergency than the looming financial disaster that they had intended to focus on in their first days in office.

A $15 billion bailout that Mr. Yanukovych secured from Russia has been suspended as a result of the political upheaval and Ukraine is in desperate need of an assistance package. Mr. Yatsenyuk had said that the government’s first responsibility was to begin negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and start to put in place the economic reforms and painful austerity measures that the fund has requested in exchange for help.

In Crimea, however, officials said they did not recognize the new government, and declared that they had taken control.

Mr. Aksyonov, the regional prime minister, said he was ordering the regional armed forces, the Interior Ministry troops, the Security Service, border guards and other ministries under his direct control. “I ask anyone who disagrees to leave the service,” he said.

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As soldiers mobilized across the peninsula, the region’s two main airports were closed, with civilian flights canceled, and they were guarded by heavily armed men in military uniforms.

Similar forces surrounded the regional Parliament building and the rest of the government complex in downtown Simferopol, as well as numerous other strategic locations, including communication hubs and a main bus station.

Near the entrance to Balaklava, the site of a Ukrainian customs and border post near Sevastopol, the column of military vehicles with Russian plates included 10 troop trucks, with 30 soldiers in each, two military ambulances and five armored vehicles.