KIEV, Ukraine - The besieged new government of Ukraine accused Russian forces of a major escalation in pressure over control of Crimea on Monday night, saying the Russians had demanded that Ukrainian forces there surrender within hours or face armed assault. Russia denied it had issued any ultimatum.
The Interfax-Ukrainian news agency quoted an unidentified Ukrainian Defense Ministry official as saying Russia’s Black Sea Fleet commander had set a deadline of 5 a.m. Tuesday - 9 p.m. Monday Central time - for Ukrainian forces stationed in the Crimean Peninsula to lay down their weapons. But Russia’s Interfax news agency said the Black Sea Fleet had no such plans.
The speaker of Russia’s parliament said his country does not yet need to use its“right” to launch further military action in Ukraine. “This right can be used in case it is necessary,” said the speaker, Sergei Naryshkin. “But currently is not necessary.”
Senior officials from President Barack Obama’s administration said they think that Russia now has complete operational control over Crimea and has more than 6,000 forces in the region. Troops also controlled a ferry terminal in the Crimean city of Kerch, just 12 miles across the water from Russia. That intensified fears in Kiev that Moscow would send even more troops into the peninsula via that route.
The U.S. was also watching for ethnic skirmishes in other areas of eastern Ukraine, though the officials said they had not yet seen Russian military moves elsewhere. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk appealed for outside help Monday and said Crimea remained part of his country, admitting that his country currently has “no military options on the table” to reverse Russia’s military moves.
European Union foreign ministers met in an emergency session in Brussels to discuss possible punitive steps against Russia unless it pulled its troops back to its own bases in Crimea, including suspension of talks with Moscow on visa liberalization. EU foreign ministers also said they have stopped preparation for the Group of Eight summit that is set for June in the Russian resort of Sochi.
EU leaders called for a special meeting Thursday, and foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton said the EU would give Russia until then to show clear signs of good will, including a willingness to open talks and a withdrawal of Russian troops to their barracks in the Crimea. Ashton plans to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today in Madrid.
“The ambition is to see the situation improve. If it doesn’t, then the course is set,” Ashton said after Monday’s meeting.
But France and Germany said sanctions were not on the table, urging dialogue with Russia first.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, “Crisis diplomacy is not a weakness, but it will be more important than ever to not fall into the abyss of military escalation,” an indication that the Europeans would not agree on significant action. Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told reporters that “sanctions are not in order today, but sanctions will become inevitable” if there is no change in Russia’s position.
The biggest economic risk to Europe revolves around Russia’s supply of natural gas. Many eastern European countries rely almost entirely on those imports, and even Germany, Europe’s largest economy, gets 35 percent of its supplies from Russia. Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, has threatened to end a cheap deal on gas it sells to Ukraine, and claimed it is owed about $1.55 billion.
“No wonder Europe’s response to the ongoing problems has been little more than a wag of the finger at this stage,” said Kathleen Brooks, market analyst at Forex.com. “We will have to wait and see if the EU merely looks the other way when it comes to Russian-Ukrainian problems and leaves the diplomatic response to the U.S. and U.K. as they try and protect their energy supplies.”
Visiting the new government in the capital, Kiev, British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Russia to pull back its forces in Crimea or face “significant costs,” echoing comments made by Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who was due in Kiev today.
Obama on Monday accused Russia of being “on the wrong side of history” with its military intervention in Ukraine and said he’s examining diplomatic and economic steps to isolate Moscow.
On Monday night, the Pentagon took action against Russia, saying it is suspending exercises and other activities with the country’s military.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said the U.S. military has “put on hold” all military-to-military engagements, including bilateral meetings, port visits and planning conferences.
Obama said Russia has violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law, and he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to change course.
“Over time, this will be a costly proposition for Russia, and now’s the time for them to consider whether they can serve their interests in a way that resorts to diplomacy as opposed to force,” Obama said at the start of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“What cannot be done is for Russia with impunity to put its soldiers on the ground and to violate basic principles that are recognized around the world,” Obama said. “And I think the strong condemnation that it’s received from countries around the world indicates the degree to which Russia’s on the wrong side of history on this.”
Hague emphasized diplomacy during his comments in Kiev. “The world cannot just allow this to happen,” he told the BBC. “The world cannot say it’s OK in effect to violate the sovereignty of another nation in this way.”
Lavrov responded that Russia was only protecting its interests and those of Russian citizens in Ukraine. In a Geneva speech, Lavrov broke from his text to say: “Those who try to interpret the situation as an act of aggression, threaten us with sanctions and boycotts, are the same partners who have been consistently and vigorously encouraging the political powers close to them to declare ultimatums and renounce dialogue, to ignore the concerns of the south and east of Ukraine, and consequently to the polarization of the Ukrainian society.”
The use of Russian troops is necessary “until the normalization of the political situation” in Ukraine, Lavrov said at an opening of a month-long session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. “We are talking here about protection of our citizens and compatriots, about protection of the most fundamental of the human rights - the right to live, and nothing more.” But he did not specify what threats Russian citizens faced from Ukraine.
Lavrov urged Ukraine to return to the Feb. 21 agreement signed by ousted President Viktor Yanukovych aimed at ending his country’s three-month political crisis. Yanukovych fled his country after signing the deal with the opposition and foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland to hold early elections this fall and surrender much of his powers.
Since Yanukovych’s departure, Russia has insisted on the agreement’s implementation as one of its key demands.
Lavrov was to meet later in Geneva with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who on Sunday sent his deputy, Jan Eliasson to Kiev to make a personal assessment of developments and then brief him on steps the U.N. could take “to support the de-escalation of the situation.”
Ban told reporters that he would discuss with Lavrovways to de-escalate the crisis, and that the main purpose of Eliasson’s visit to Kiev was to convey to Ukraine’s authorities the importance of refraining from inflammatory statements and engaging in direct dialogue with Russia.
At the U.N. headquarters in New York, the Security Council was to meet Monday afternoon, at Russia’s request - the third meeting since Friday. At each, Russia has been sharply criticized by Western members. At one point, the British ambassador to the U.N., Sir Mark Lyall Grant, said Russia had provided no justification for its military actions. The U.S. ambassador, Samantha Power, urged Russia to “stand down” and recommended a fact-finding mission by either the U.N. or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told the Human Rights Council that it was trying to set up a contact group on Ukraine that would serve as a platform for international aid and was also discussing sending an observer mission that would focus on the rights of minority groups in Ukraine.
Russia holds veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council, so it was unclear what the council could do.
With the new Kiev government confronted by the loss of Crimea and a worsening economic situation, a team from the International Monetary Fund is scheduled to arrive today for a 10-day investigation of the state of Ukraine’s finances.The government has said it is prepared to take difficult economic measures if necessary to secure a stabilization loan from the fund.
Moscow suspended its offer of bond purchases when Yanukovych was ousted more than a week ago.
Crimea was relatively calm Monday, with Russian forces continuing their military standoffs around Ukrainian bases to neutralize them and seek their surrender.
In Donetsk, however, in eastern Ukraine, Yanukovych’s native region, a large pro-Russian demonstration led to some violence. About 1,000 pro-Russian demonstrators occupied the first floor of the regional government building that has already been flying the Russian flag for several days. The protesters, waving Russian flags and shouting “Putin, come,” were unable to go higher because elevators were disabled and stairwell doors shut. They had entered through a side door after confronting police who were guarding the front entrance.
The protest leader, Pavel Gubarev, demanded that the parliament in Kiev be declared illegitimate, a pro-Russian governor be accepted in Donetsk and all security forces be put under regional command.
In Sevastopol, at the headquarters of Ukraine’s naval forces, six heavily armed men in unmarked uniforms and masks stood outside, cheered on by about 100 people waving Russian flags and loudly proclaiming their loyalties.
Inside, Rear Adm. Sergei Gaiduk said he was acting commander of the Ukrainian navy after the defection Sunday of his predecessor and declared loyalty to the country’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov.
In a video address on her website, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said that by occupying Crimea, Russia has effectively “declared war” on Britain and the United States, which had sought to guarantee Ukraine’s security through a 1994 Budapest memorandum also signed by Moscow.
“Vladimir Putin is fully conscious that by declaring war, he is also declaring war on the guarantors of our security, the United States and Britain,” she said.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Erlanger, Andrew Roth, Andrew Kramer, Alison Smale, David M. Herszenhorn, Noah Sneider, Patrick Reevell, Andrew Higgins, Stephen Castle, Somini Sengupta and Nick Cumming-Bruce of The New York Times; and by Lara Jakes, Julie Pace, Pan Pylas, Juergen Baetz, Raf Casert, John Heilprin, Dalton Bennett, David McHugh, Yuras Karmanau, Frank Jordans,Volodya Isachenkov, Laura Mills and Danica Kirka of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/04/2014