Replies

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/ukraine-warns-russia-crimea-war-live

27m ago
Shaun Walker is at the Perevalne military base in Crimea, where there is a tense standoff between opposing forces. He told me:

It’s a Ukrainian base. There are Russian troops everywhere, lining the hills and roads towards it. There are at least 100 of them standing in twos and several military vehicles. The Ukrainians are inside. They have driven a tank up to the gates and there are 15 of them lined up by the gates.

There was a negotiation and the Russians have agreed they’re not going to enter the base for now and the Ukrainians have said they’re not going to give up.

Updated 20m ago
37m ago Summary
Here is a quick summary of the latest developments

• Russian and Ukrainian troops are engaged in a tense standoff at a military base in Crimea. The Guardian’s Shaun Walker said at least a hundred Russian troops are outside the Perevalnoe base, while the Ukrainians have driven a tank up to the inside gates of the base where 15 Ukrainian soldiers are lined up.

• A Ukrainian MP told the Guardian Russian troops are trying to get soldiers to give up their weapons in three locations in Crimea. Kiev has denied Russian media claims that its troops are defecting.

• Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has accused Russia of threatening peace and security in Europe by its actions and of violating the UN charter. He called on Russia to “de-escalate”.

• The Ukrainian prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, said Russia has declared war on Ukraine and that it is not just a threat from Moscow. He warned: “We are on the brink of disaster”.

• Ukraine’s parliament has called for international monitors to help ensure the safety of its nuclear power plants.

• French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that planning for the G8 economic summit, scheduled to be held in June at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of the just-concluded 2014 Winter Olympics, should be put on hold. The US had already said it would suspend participation in “preparatory meetings”.

53m ago
Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has said Russia is threatening peace in Europe. He said in a statement:

What Russia is doing now in Ukraine violates the principles of the United Nations charter. It threatens peace and security in Europe.

Rasmussen called on Russia to deescalate tensions and for all parties to “continue all efforts to move away from this dangerous situation”.

Updated 8m ago
1h 5m ago

Ukrainian soldiers gather behind main gate of their base as it’s surrounded by Russian commandos.
1h 14m ago
Oksana Grytsenko, reporting from the Guardian in Ukraine, has been speaking to a Ukrainian MP who said that Russian soldiers have been trying to get Ukrainian forces in Crimea to give up their weapons:

Hrygory Nemyria, Batkivshchyna lawmaker, told journalists regarding Russian soldiers in Crimea: “In three locations they didn’t just block but came in. They suggested military personal give up arms.” He added that the same was happening with several police units.

Parliament approved with more that 300 votes a resolution appealing to state guarantors of Ukraine’s security (UK and US) to involve and send monitoring missions here. Nemyria said: “They have Russian citizens in Ukraine’s provinces orchestrating illegal seizure of administrative buildings.”He added that Russians acted in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv yesterday.

1h 20m ago
There is a huge demonstration in Independence Square, Kiev, going on at present. Here is a live stream:

1h 22m ago
Ukraine’s prime minister has warned that Russia is not merely threatening Ukraine.

1h 29m ago

1h 30m ago
Shaun Walker sends this update from Crimea:

I have just been at a press conference by Crimean parliament speaker Vladimir Konstantinov. I asked him if the referendum set for 30 March could include a question about joining Russia. He was evasive but appeared to say no.

He also refused to say for certain whether he recognises the Ukrainian constitution.

1h 30m ago

1h 48m ago
The prime minister of Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008 over the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, has said the international community “must use all efforts to ensure against the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Irakli Garibashvilli said in a statement:

The decision of the Russian government to send additional troops to Ukraine is a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law. This situation escalates the turbulent situation even further and may entail grievous consequences.

The international community, especially the European Union and the United States of America, must use all efforts to ensure against the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The international community must respond immediately to these processes and compel Russia to give up its forceful actions. Otherwise, we many end up facing yet another wave of aggression and occupation, which Georgia has experienced firsthand.

1h 57m ago
At a closed-door session, Ukraine’s parliament has called for international monitors to help ensure the safety of its nuclear power plants, Reuters reports.

Hryhoriy Nemyria, a member of parliament, said the assembly appealed to the signatories of a 1994 nuclear treaty that guaranteed Ukraine’s safety - including the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.

2h 18m ago

2h 20m ago
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, writes for Comment is Free that the crisis in Crimea could lead the world into a second cold war.

This is perhaps the most dangerous point in Europe’s history since the end of the cold war. Direct confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces will draw in the United States, one way or another...

The Crimea crisis will not pass soon. Kiev is unlikely to agree to Crimea’s secession, even if backed by clear popular will: this would be discounted because of the “foreign occupation” of the peninsula. The crisis is also expanding to include other players, notably the United States. So far, there has been no military confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces, but if they clash, this will not be a repeat of the five-day war in the South Caucasus, as in 2008. The conflict will be longer and bloodier, with security in Europe put at its highest risk in a quarter century.

Even if there is no war, the Crimea crisis is likely to alter fundamentally relations between Russia and the west and lead to changes in the global power balance, with Russia now in open competition with the United States and the European Union in the new eastern Europe. If this happens, a second round of the cold war may ensue as a punishment for leaving many issues unsolved – such as Ukraine’s internal cohesion, the special position of Crimea, or the situation of Russian ethnics in the newly independent states; but, above all, leaving unresolved Russia’s integration within the Euro-Atlantic community. Russia will no doubt pay a high price for its apparent decision to “defend its own” and “put things right”, but others will have to pay their share, too.

2h 31m ago

2h 32m ago
The Russian press are continuing to paint a picture of ethnic Russians under siege in Ukraine.

Itar-Tass news agency, which describes itself as “the state central information agency”, reports that Russia’s border guard service said some 675,000 Ukrainians have left for Russia in January and February this year and warned that there are signs of a “humanitarian catastrophe”. Tass quotes the service as saying:

If ‘revolutionary chaos’ in Ukraine continues, hundreds of thousands of refugees will flow into bordering Russian regions.

2h 39m ago

2h 47m ago
Here are a couple of updates from Russian news organisations:

Interfax is reporting that the conservative vice-speaker of Russia’s Duma, Sergei Zheleznyak, has called a rally today in support of “Ukrainian brothers” who continue to speak Russian and don’t recognise the “nationalist Bandera supporters who have seized power.”

Members of Ukraine’s infamous Berkut riot police from all over the country are seeking Russian passports along with their families, the major of the Crimean Berkut detachment Viktor Denisenko told journalists, Ria Novosti reports. Previously, the Moscow police announced they would form a special unit from former members of Berkut, which had answered directly to President Viktor Yanukovych and was a main instrument of violence against protestors in Kiev but was disbanded last week, after the ousting of Yanukovych.

2h 58m ago
A convoy of hundreds of Russian troops is headed toward the regional capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, AP is reporting.

On the road from Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia has its naval base, to Simferopol on Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists saw 12 military trucks carrying troops, a Tiger vehicle armed with a machine gun and also two ambulances.

Heavily-armed troops displaying no identifying insignia and local pro-Russian militants stand guard outside a local government building in Simferopol, Ukraine on 2 March, 2014.
Heavily-armed troops displaying no identifying insignia and local pro-Russian militants stand guard outside a local government building in Simferopol, Ukraine on 2 March, 2014. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
3h 5m ago
Ukraine is calling up all its military reserves, Reuters is reporting.

3h 6m ago
The Guardian’s Shaun Walker sends this update from Ukraine:

Andriy Kozhemyakin, influential lawmaker of Batkivshchyna and SBU [Ukrainian security service] general told me he has no information about the Russians invading military bases. He also denied that Russian troops were in regions outside Crimea. But a number of bases are blocked, he said:

“Ukraine’s soldiers received order not to fight with Russians who are blocking or invading into military bases, and I think it’s right under current circumstances.”

3h 9m ago

3h 11m ago
State funded news website Russia Today claims that Ukrainian troops sent to Crimea by the Kiev government are switching sides. Unsurprisingly, given RT’s links to the Russian government, many are crying “propaganda”.

Earlier today , RT was hacked.

3h 22m ago
Russian military servicemen have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine’s Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula’s “legitimate” leaders, Interfax news agency is reporting. From Reuters:

It quoted a Ukrainian defence ministry source as saying the Russian servicemen had taken pistols, rifles and ammunition cartridges from the radar post near the town of Sudak and taken them away by car.

Another group of Russian military had also removed weapons from a Ukrainian navy training centre in the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet also has a base.

3h 28m ago
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the latest events from Ukraine, where the country has put its armed forces on full alert and warned Russia that military intervention will lead to war. The move came shortly after Vladimir Putin gave the green light for an invasion as the upper house of the Russian parliament unanimously approved his request to send troops into the neighbouring state.

Tensions continued to mount on Sunday with the Associated Press reporting that journalists on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula have seen a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops heading toward the regional capital, Simferopol. Russian military servicemen are also reported to have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine’s Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula’s “legitimate” leaders, according to the Interfax news agency.

Barack Obama accused Russia on Saturday of a “breach of international law” and condemned the country’s military intervention, calling it a “clear violation” of Ukrainian sovereignty during a 90-minute telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin.