Russian forces expand control of Crimea

By William Booth, Will Englund and Kathy Lally, Updated: Monday, March 3, 7:44 PM E-mail the writers

The Washington Post

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — Russian forces expanded their control of the Crimea region Monday and reportedly gave the Ukrainian military an ultimatum, as the Ukrainian prime minister called for Western political and economic support and the Russian and Ukrainian currencies fell in tandem.

The Russian naval commander in Crimea is demanding that Ukrainian forces on the peninsula surrender by 5 a.m. Tuesday or face a “military storm,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, quoting a Ukrainian Defense Ministry source.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry denied the report, calling it “utter nonsense.” A ministry spokesman in Moscow said no Russian ultimatum has been given to the Ukrainian military in Crimea. A spokesman for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea issued a similar denial. “Such reports are utter rubbish,” the unidentified spokesman told Interfax. “Attempts to set us against each other will fail.”

Russian forces, already in control of much of Crimea, took possession of a ferry terminal in Kerch, in the eastern part of the peninsula just across a strait from Russian territory, according to reports from the area. The terminal serves as a departure point for many ships heading to Russia and could be used to send even more Russian troops into Crimea.

In Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet leases a naval base, Russian tugboats and warships blocked three Ukrainian naval vessels Monday, forcing them to remain at a dock. The commander of the Black Sea Fleet gave the Ukrainian navy an ultimatum to transfer allegiance to the pro-Russian regional government in Crimea by early Tuesday or be boarded by Russian forces, Ukrainian officers aboard the blockaded ship told their wives onshore. The ship’s crew brought water hoses and fire-fighting equipment onto the deck and covered railings with mattresses in preparation for a confrontation. They did not strike their colors.

Russian news media said the deadline to transfer allegiance also applied to other Ukrainian military units and installations in Crimea.

Earlier in the Crimean port, a Ukrainian admiral who defected to the side of the rebellious, pro-Russian Crimean government tried to persuade his fellow officers in a meeting Monday morning to join him. They refused.

As they did in Sunday’s standoff at a Ukrainian army base in Perevalne, armed Russian troops, demonstrating who was in charge, posted guards at the gates of the Ukraine naval station in Sevastopol as Ukrainian marines milled around inside the base.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council called an urgent meeting Monday for 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. Ukraine has asked the council to address what it said was a threat to the country’s “territorial integrity.”

Vice President Biden called Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday morning in the latest U.S. effort to resolve the crisis, the White House said. Biden “urged Russia to pull back its forces, support the immediate deployment of international monitors to Ukraine, and begin a meaningful political dialogue with the Ukrainian government,” a statement from the vice president’s office said.

As Russia and Ukraine maneuvered for advantage and braced for conflict, both countries’ currencies fell Monday. The Russian ruble tumbled in value against a basket of currencies, triggering the biggest stock sell-off in five years as the benchmark Micex stock index dropped 8.5 percent as of early afternoon Monday in Moscow, Bloomberg News reported.

Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, urged the West to provide political and economic support and said Crimea remained part of his country, but he conceded that there were “for today, no military options on the table,” Reuters news agency reported.

Obama administration officials said Russia now has 6,000 troops in Crimea.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that Russian intervention in Crimea has produced “a very tense and dangerous situation” that amounts to Europe’s “biggest crisis” so far in the 21st century.

“The world cannot just allow this to happen,” Hague said. “The world cannot just say it is okay, in effect, to violate the sovereignty of another nation in this way.”

In Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday justified the troop influx as a necessary measure to protect Russians living in Crimea “until the normalization of the political situation” in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. He made the statement at the opening of a month-long session of the U.N. Human Rights Council ahead of a meeting later Monday with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

“Those who are trying to interpret the situation as a sort of aggression and threatening us with sanctions and boycotts, these are the same partners who have been consistently and vigorously encouraging the political powers close to them to declare ultimatums and renounce dialogue,” Lavrov said. “We call upon them . . . to set aside geopolitical calculations and put the interests of the Ukrainian people above all.”

According to the LB.ua news Web site, a representative of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet called on members of Ukrainian Aviation Brigade in Belbek to denounce Ukrainian government authority and swear allegiance to the new Crimean government. He warned that if the demand is not met by 4 p.m. Monday, the fleet would take severe measures against the Ukrainian military. Crimean Defense Minister Vladislav Seleznev issued a similar warning on his Facebook page, the Ukrainian Web site reported.

The British foreign secretary, William Hague, flew to Kiev and assured the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, of Britain’s support for Ukrainian territorial integrity.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry is due in Kiev on Tuesday, on the same mission.

In Moscow, criminal investigators have opened a case against the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement Pravy Sektor, Dmytro Yarosh, though it was unclear how they would have jurisdiction over Yarosh, who is in Ukraine.

The investigators allege that Yarosh called on a Chechen radical to attack Russia. He says his Web account was hacked and that he never made the statement.

Russia has also blocked 13 pages of the social network site Vkontakte that were used by Ukrainian nationalists.

And the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said his country wants to pursue plans to build a bridge that would replace the ferry serving Kerch. Though that would take months if not years, his remarks may have been intended to show that Russia plans to keep control of Crimea.

Still, there were no reports of any fighting as the standoff continued Monday.

With the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, at an all-time low against both the dollar and the euro, and Russia’s ruble at its lowest point in years, Ukraine and Russia were each facing tough economic news.

Ukraine’s finances are in much worse shape than Russia’s, but analysts in Moscow said the Kremlin is expecting Western efforts to punish Russia economically — up to and including sanctions — over the Ukrainian crisis.

Late Sunday, the leading industrial nations formerly known as the Group of Seven — until they admitted Russia to their membership in 1997 and became the Group of Eight — decided to suspend Russian activity in the group.

Yatsenyuk, the new Ukrainian new prime minister, said Sunday that the bold and provocative Russian troop movements in Crimea in recent days amounted to a “declaration of war to my country.” Ukrainian officials sounded a mobilization order for army reservists to report for duty immediately.

In an emotional plea at a Kiev news conference, Yatsenyuk said, “We are on the brink of disaster.”

Yatsenyuk, part of a new government that took power after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was tossed out of office just over a week ago, said armed conflict was a real possibility.

“If President Putin wants to be the president who started a war between two neighboring and friendly countries, Ukraine and Russia, he has reached that target within a few inches,” Yatsenyuk said in English.

Western officials, including Kerry, have been unequivocal in their denunciations of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Kerry warned that “the people of Ukraine will not sit still for this. They know how to fight.”

He and European foreign affairs leaders promised Sunday that there would be a strong response to Russia’s decision to “invade” Ukraine, as Kerry put it in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin was silent Sunday.

Ukrainian leaders worried that Russia was looking for any provocation on their part to justify an attack.

By late Sunday, no shots had been fired in Crimea, a region of eastern Ukraine where Russian culture and influence have historically been strong.

But at the narrow land crossing between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, Russian soldiers are digging trenches, according to a BBC report.

Soldiers thought to belong to Russian units, without insignia or markings, moved unimpeded into positions across the Crimean Peninsula. Over a three-day period, they have surrounded military and civilian installations. Convoys of Russian troop trucks were spotted on highways. A Russian flag flew over the Crimean parliament.

At the Ukrainian military base at Perevalnoe in Crimea, Ukrainian soldiers stood guard while soldiers whom locals described as Russian commandos milled around outside the walls. The Ukrainians refused to surrender their weapons or step aside. A commander of the Ukrainian troops spoke with the men surrounding his base, then went back inside.

Civilians in a pro-Russia crowd outside the base called to the Ukrainian soldiers, “Boys, don’t be afraid, we will protect you!” Others urged them to open the gates and let the Russians in. A Russian Orthodox priest arrived and blessed the Russians and Ukrainians. “Now we feel safe and patriotic that the Russian soldiers are here for us,” said a man from a nearby village who gave his name as Vladi­mir.

Asked about the Ukrainian soldiers inside the base, Vladimir said: “They should go home. They’re not going to fight. It’s over.”

The loyalties — and the command and control — of the Ukrainian military in Crimea are unknown.

Russian media said Ukrainian troops were not putting up any resistance. Ukraine’s new interior minister, Arsen Avakov, denied reports of mass resignations from the Ukrainian army in Crimea.

But the new head of the Ukrain­ian navy, Rear Adm. Denys Berezovsky, appeared in a video Sunday swearing his allegiance to the “people of Crimea,” as the new pro-Russia prime minister of Crimea stood at his elbow.

Officials in Kiev labeled it a defection and said the admiral would be investigated for treason. They assured citizens that the 10 vessels in the navy’s fleet in nearby Sevastopol remained loyal to Ukraine and have not surrendered their weapons.

In Simferopol, the Ukrainian border guard reported that civilians and Russian soldiers broke down the doors at their base and destroyed work stations and communications equipment but that the border guardsmen did not give up their weapons, according to the Kyiv Post.

Life in cities and villages went on peacefully. Regional airports were scheduled to open. In pro-Russia Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is berthed, citizens had their photos taken beside Russian commandos.

There were rallies in Russia and Ukraine, for and against Russian intervention.

One of richest men in Ukraine, business mogul Rinat Akhmetov, issued a statement denouncing violence and calling for unity, saying: “Today the economy is a real political power. Our objective is to ensure the safety of people and their families and secure stable operations of companies in the country.”

In Dnepropetrovsk, a mostly Russian-speaking city southeast of Kiev, a rally described by local reporters as the largest in years drew an estimated 10,000 people who shouted “Down with Putin!” A similar rally was held in Odessa, Ukraine’s third-largest city. In Luhansk, meanwhile, the city council said it refused to recognize the authority of the new leaders in Kiev, according to the news Web site Kommersant.ua

In Kharkiv, a hotbed of pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine, a few thousand protesters joined a rally Sunday to denounce the Russian move into Crimea.

Englund reported from Kiev. Lally reported from Moscow. William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.