Mainstream coverage

Mainstream coverage of events in Crimea

Russian president Vladimir Putin says he reserves the right to use force in Ukraine

• Russian troops fire warning shots in Crimea
• ICBM launchd in ‘test fire’
• US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Kiev
• Kerry to offer $1 billion in subsidies to Ukraine

News.com.au

5 March, 2014

RUSSIA has test-fired a nuclear-capable ICBM after President Vladimir Putin denied invading Ukraine - even as his troops ransacked an air base, took over border check points and his ships were repositioned to block a harbour.

Earlier Russian soldiers fired warning shots at a group of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers (watch the video above) in a tense stand-off.

And the confusion continues this morning, with reports of armed men trying to board a Ukrainian naval command ship and speculation Russian warships may be stalking another of the country’s vessels.

The BBC was among news organisations quoting a Ukrainian navy spokesman who said the boarders were repelled by crew men as they attempted to board naval flagship the Slavutych. It is not clear how they fought them off - with guns or other means.

Meanwhile a Ukrainian-flagged destroyer was earlier this morning seen returning to the Black Sea via the Dardanelles with two Russian warships following.

In a bizarre day of contradictions that left Ukrainians confused and just as fearful, both West and East powers sought to diffuse the crisis with rhetoric but took actions toward the opposite effect.

The most ominous message came from a belligerant Russia: Its Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan, the state-run news agency RIA cited Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov as saying.

In his first comments since Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev, Mr Putin said he considers him to still be Ukraine’s leader, and hopes that Russia won’t need to use force in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

He insisted Russia has the right to use ``all means’’ to protect its citizens in Ukraine - but at the same time said he had not sent troops into the Crimea.

``No, they did not participate,’’ he said.

``There are lots of uniforms that look similar.’’

President Putin rejected the Western threat to punish Russia with sanctions over its action in Ukraine, saying they will backfire against the West.

Underlining the tensions, Russian forces surrounding an air base in Belbek near Sevastopol, fired warning shots at Ukrainian servicemen trying to approach, a Ukrainian officer inside told AFP.

The Ukrainian soldiers stopped and remained outside the air base, the officer Oleksey Khramov added by telephone.

YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE: OBAMA

US President Barack Obama says Russia is not ”fooling anybody’’ over the crisis in Ukraine after Vladimir Putin denied that Russian forces were operating on the flashpoint Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Obama said the European Union and allies like Canada and Japan all believed Russia had violated international law by mobilising troops following the ouster of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych.

``President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers, maybe a different set of interpretations. But I do not think that is fooling anybody,’’ Obama said on Tuesday.

”It is clear that Russia has been working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further,’’ Secretay of State John Kerry said during his visit to Kiev. “It is not appropriate to invade a country, and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve. That is not 21st-century, G-8, major nation behavior.’’

SECRETARY OF STATE’S FLYING VISIT

In a show of support for Ukraine’s interim government, the US Air Force One arrived in the capital Kiev with Secretary of State John Kerry holding high level talks with the new leadership.

Just moments after Moscow made moves to pledged financial support for the imploding country, he trumped them by announcing a $1 billion energy subsidy package. That was for stability but in a counter announcement, the US administration said Congress was close to finalising economic sanctions against Russia for its passive invasion of the southern Ukraine state of Crimea in support of ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

US Secretary of State Kerry toured a street near Maidan Independence Square where the people’s revolution overthrew the Yanukovych regime with 95 people killed in clashes and 500 others injured. He lay a bunch or red roses and a shrine close to where protesters were gunned down by police snipers two weeks ago.

“We will be helping,” he told locals who had gathered about him. “We are helping. President Obama is planning more assistance.” The US has also pledged to provide Ukraine with technical expertise to track down the billions of dollars Yanukovych and his senior ministers are believed to have laundered out of the country.

PUTIN DENIES INVASION

Meanwhile about the same time President Putin broke his one week of silence to accuse the West of having driving Ukraine to anarchy and supporting the coup to rid the Yanukovych who he still considered the real president.

But then in a baffling series of denials and half moves toward reconciliations, President Putin said he was pulling back from the brink of war but reserved the right to use force if Russians in the Ukraine were threatened.

In his declarations, he denied Russia had sent any forces to Crimea, said force was a “last resort” only and described the ousting of Yanukoych as an “anti-constitutional takeover and armed seizure of power”.

“We reserve the right to use all available means. And we believe that this is fully legitimate. This is a last resort”

“We cannot stand aside if we see that they start to persecute or destroy. We very much hope that it does not come to this.”

He said he Kremlin had given Yanukovych sanctuary because otherwise he would have been killed.

On Ukrainian and US estimates of 16,000 Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine, President Putin said this was wrong and indeed he had none.

“You can go into a shop and buy any kind of uniform. These were local (pro-Russian) self-defence forces.”

“Thank God that this was done without a single shot and everything is in the hands of the Crimean people.”

But as he came up with that bizarre claim, Russian forces, many of whose have declared their status now, remained in control of Crimea and today the first shots were fired at a column of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers marching back to their air base. A tense stand off ensued as the reported Russian troops fired several rounds into the air over the Ukrainian heads and demanded they turn around.

Remembering the dead ... a man wearing camouflage uniform holds a candle during the funer

CHOKE—HOLD TIGHTENS ON CRIMEA

At another air base near Yevpatoria, 150 Russian troops broke into an air base while Russian navy ships have blocked off the Kerch Strait which separates Ukraine’s Crimea region and Russia, the Ukrainian border guard service said on Tuesday.

The border guards have said that Russian servicemen are in control of the Crimean side of the narrow channel and that Russian armoured vehicles have been sighted on the Russian side.

“The Kerch Strait is blocked by two Russian ships — from the north and from the south,” Pavel Shishurin, the deputy head of the border guards, told reporters.

The Russian military has not confirmed his comments.

The Kerch Strait provides access to the Black Sea for ships carrying grain and other commodities from southern Russian regions. In the east of the country, troops forced border guards at checkpoints to abandon their posts.

Hostile greeting ... a soldier under Russian command aims a rocket-propelled grenade laun

Hostile greeting ... a soldier under Russian command aims a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at a group of over 100 hundred unarmed Ukrainian troops who appeared at the Belbek air base. Source: Getty Images

Senator Kerry laughed at President Putin’s remarks he had no troops in Crimea. He also dismissed claims by the Kremlin of anarchy on the streets, likening the claim as an excuse.

“Not a single piece of credible evidence supports Russia’s claims,” he said adding there had not been a surge of crime or looting.

Meanwhile Russia has agreed to talks later today with NATO chiefs including Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen who said the Russian intervention in Crimea was threatening peace and security across Europe.