KIEV,
Ukraine — Ukraine’s fragile new government accused Russia of trying to
provoke a military conflict by invading the Crimea region on Friday,
while in Washington President Obama issued a stern warning to the
Kremlin about respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty, in an effort to preclude
a full-scale military escalation.
American
officials did not directly confirm a series of public statements by
senior Ukrainian officials, including the acting president, Oleksandr V.
Turchynov, that Russian troops were being deployed to Crimea, where
Russia has a major naval base, in violation of the two countries’
agreements there.
Mr. Obama, however, cited “reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine,” and he said, “Any violation of Ukrainian sovereignty would be deeply destabilizing.”
“There will be costs,” Mr. Obama said in a hastily arranged statement from the White House.
The pointed warning came after a day in which military analysts
struggled to understand a series of unusual events in Crimea, including a
mobilization of armored personnel carriers with Russian markings on the
roads of the region’s capital, Simferopol, and a deployment of
well-armed, masked gunmen at Crimea’s two main airports.
“The
Russian Federation began an unvarnished aggression against our
country,” Mr. Turchynov said in televised remarks on Friday evening.
“Under the guise of military exercises, they entered troops into the autonomous Republic of Crimea.”
He said that Russian forces had captured the regional Parliament and the headquarters of the regional government,
and that they had seized other targets, including vital communications
hubs, as well as blocked unspecified Ukrainian military assets.
American
officials said they believed that unusual helicopter movements over
Crimea were evidence that a military intervention was underway, but
cautioned that they did not know the scale of the operation or the
Russians’ motives.
Russia
on Friday denied that it had encroached on Ukrainian territory or would
do so. After an emergency meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations
Security Council, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, said that any troop movements were in line with arrangements that allow it to station soldiers in the area.
“We have an agreement with Ukraine on the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet and we operate under this agreement,” Mr. Churkin said.
Still, the developments in Crimea sent Ukraine’s interim government, which was appointed
recently, deep into crisis mode as it confronted the prospect of an
armed effort to split off Crimea, an autonomous region with close
historic ties to Russia, from the Ukrainian mainland.
Analysts
said the reported moves in the area had parallels to steps Russia took
before a war with Georgia in 2008 over the largely ethnic Russian
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There was little to indicate if
President Vladimir V. Putin intended to escalate the challenge to
Ukraine beyond nonviolent provocation of the mostly pro-Russian
population in the region.
Mr.
Turchynov, the acting president, also made comparisons to Georgia.
“They are provoking us into military conflict,” he said. “They began
annexation of territory.”
In
his address, Mr. Turchynov added, “I personally appeal to President
Putin, demanding that he immediately stop the provocation and withdraw
troops.”
The
crisis in Crimea is the latest a series of rapidly unfurling events
that began when scores of people were killed in Kiev last week during a
severe escalation of civic unrest that had been underway since late
November.
Protests
started after Russia pressured Viktor F. Yanukovych, then the
president, to back away from political and free-trade agreements with
the European Union that he had long promised to sign, setting off an
East-West confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War.
After
the recent killings, Mr. Yanukovych reached a tentative truce with
opposition leaders in talks brokered by the foreign ministers of France,
Germany and Poland, but within 24 hours he fled Kiev, Ukraine’s
capital, and an overwhelming majority of lawmakers voted to strip him of
power, saying he had abandoned his position.
On
Friday, a week later, Mr. Yanukovych resurfaced for a news conference
in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in which he said he was still the legitimate
president and urged Russia not to intervene militarily in Crimea.
Mr.
Obama’s warning suggested a deepening uncertainty among American
officials about Mr. Putin’s intentions in the region despite a series of
high-level contacts in recent days, including a telephone call between
the two presidents one week ago. Mr. Yanukovych was an ally of Russia,
and his toppling has left the Kremlin grappling for a response.
While
American officials said that intelligence indicated that a Russian
operation was underway, Mr. Obama stopped short of calling it an
invasion. Part of the confusion, one official said, was that Russia
routinely moves troops between military bases in Crimea.
Another
American official said that intelligence reports from the region were
“all over the place,” but that the administration believed that Russia
had moved some of its forces into Ukraine, while some of the movement,
officials said, seemed to be an increase in protective measures around
Russian military installations.
Though he threatened an unspecified cost to Russia, Mr. Obama has limited options to respond to an intervention. Officials said he could cancel his participation in a Group of 8 meeting in Sochi, Russia, in June. The administration could also break off talks on a potential trade agreement. Russia sent a delegation to Washington this week to explore closer trade and commercial ties.
Crimea,
a multiethnic region that was granted a large degree of autonomy after
Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union, has long been a
source of tension with Russia and is home to some of Russia’s most
important military installations, including the headquarters of its
Black Sea naval fleet.
As other nations reacted with consternation to the developments in Crimea, the Kremlin was largely silent.
Russian
state television reported that Russian troops had arrived to secure the
airport at Belbek, which is close to the Russian naval base, but
officials did not confirm that information. The identity of gunmen who
appeared at the Simferopol airport and at roadblocks on major roadways
also remained unclear.
While
movement of Russian military vehicles, equipment and personnel is
common in the Crimea, Friday’s activity was extremely unusual, local
residents said. It involved a number of strange components, including
the deployment of heavily armed soldiers, wearing uniforms with no
identifying marks, at the region’s two main airports.
Before
dawn, at Simferopol’s international airport, the soldiers initially
posted themselves outside an administrative building, and through much
of the day they did not interfere with departing or arriving flights.
By
evening, however, the usual flight in from Kiev was canceled, and it
was unclear whether any flights would go through Crimean airspace over
the weekend. Similarly mysterious gunmen also appeared at the second
airport, which is used for civil and military flights.
Journalists
spotted a convoy of nine Russian armored personnel carriers on a road
between the port city of Sevastopol, the site of Russia’s main naval
base, and Simferopol, a city of about 250,000 people. There were also
unconfirmed reports that several planes carrying thousands of Russian
soldiers had arrived in Crimea on Friday night.
Even
more unusual, a Ukrainian telecommunications company, Ukrtelecom, said
unknown people had seized control of several communications hubs,
disrupting telephone and Internet service between Crimea and the rest of
Ukraine. In a statement, the company pleaded with law enforcement
agencies to take control of the situation.
While
Western governments at first seemed hesitant to draw conclusions,
officials in the new provisional government in Kiev said early Friday
morning that they suspected Russian interference.
Mr.
Turchynov, who is also the speaker of Parliament, immediately convened a
meeting of the newly formed National Security and Defense Council to
discuss the events in the south.
--------
David M. Herszenhorn
reported from Kiev, Mark Landler from Washington, and Alison Smale from
Simferopol, Ukraine. Reporting was contributed by Patrick Reevell and
Noah Sneider from Simferopol, Oksana Lyachnyska from Kiev, Somini
Sengupta from the United Nations, and Michael D. Shear, Michael R.
Gordon, Thom Shanker and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
Source: nytimes.com
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