Russia: 'Self-defense' forces in Crimea can't be sent back to bases

PARIS/KIEV — Russia said on Wednesday it could not order "self-defense" forces in Crimea back to their bases ahead of the first face-to-face talks with the United States on easing tensions over Ukraine and averting the risk of war. Russia and the West are facing the most serious confrontation since the end of the Cold War over influence in Ukraine, a major commodities exporter and strategic link between East and West.

Ukraine pulled out of a trade deal with the European Union under Russian pressure last year, leading to months of street protests in Kiev and the February 22 ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich, a Russian ally.

Russia has effectively occupied the Crimea region, further raising the tensions in the region and provoking sharp falls in financial markets on Monday although they have since stabilized.

Speaking before meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris later in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Moscow's assertion - ridiculed by the West - that the troops that have seized control of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula are not under Russian command. "If you mean the self-defense units created by the inhabitants of Crimea, we give them no orders, they take no orders from us," Lavrov told a questioner at a joint news conference with his Spanish counterpart in Madrid.

"As for the military personnel of the (Russian) Black Sea Fleet, they are in their deployment sites. Yes, additional vigilance measures were taken to safeguard the sites... We will do everything not to allow any bloodshed."

From Russia, ‘Tourists’ Stir the Protests "DONETSK, Ukraine — Around the south and east of Ukraine, in vital cities in the country’s industrial heartland, ethnic Russians have staged demonstrations and stormed buildings demanding a wider invasion of their country by Moscow.

But some of the people here calling for Russian intervention are themselves Russian — “protest tourists” from across the border.

They have included passport-carrying Russians, like Aleksey Khudyakov, a pro-Kremlin Muscovite who said he traveled here “to watch and maybe to give some advice.” In Kharkiv, another Russian scaled a government building to dramatically plant his country’s flag — offering at least the image that President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces were being invited in.

It is clear that in this part of Ukraine, many ethnic Russians distrust the fledgling government, and some would indeed welcome Russian troops. But the events unfolding in major Ukrainian cities in recent days appear to match a pattern played by the Kremlin in Crimea, where pro-Moscow forces paving the way for Russia to seize control were neither altogether spontaneous, nor entirely local."........

Russia protects its interests.

The Obama administration wouldn't even save the ambassador and his aides in Benghazi. It won't save US citizens in the SW from invaders from Mexico. It didn't save Boston from mad Chechnyans blowing up the Marathon, in spite of warnings.

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