Ukrainian
Navy flagship takes Russia’s side – report
Ukraine’s
Navy flagship, the Hetman Sahaidachny frigate, has reportedly refused
to follow orders from Kiev, and come over to Russia’s side and is
returning home after taking part in NATO operation in the Gulf of
Aden flying the Russian naval flag.
RT,
1
March, 2014
Ukraine’s
Navy flagship the Hetman Sahaidachny has come over to our side today.
It has hung out the St Andrew’s flag,” Senator Igor Morozov, a
member of the committee on the international affairs, told Izvestia
daily.
There
has been conflicting information on where exactly the vessel is, but
a Russian senator has confirmed to Izvestia daily that the frigate
defected to the Russian side.
He
said the flagship is on its way back to the Black Sea after drills in
the Mediterranean. “The crew has fulfilled the order by the chief
commander of Ukraine’s armed forces Viktor Yanukovich,” he added.
The
move comes after the Navy command resigned Friday. Self-appointed
President Aleksandr Turchinov made Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky the
new Navy Chief, a statement published on the President’s website
Saturday said.
Arseniy
Yatsenyuk, the Prime Minister of Ukraine had earlier asked his
Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to let the frigate
through the Bosporus strait, according to the Kiev Times. The ship
captain and the head of Ukraine’s contingent in the operation, Rear
Admiral Andrey Tarasov disobeyed orders from Kiev.
The
Hetman Sahaidachny returns to Sevastopol, Crimea after taking part in
a joint counter-piracy operation with NATO and the EU off the Horn of
Africa, reported UNN on Friday, citing Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
On February 26, after crossing the Suez Canal, the ship entered the
Mediterranean Sea and was expected to be in Sevastopol in early March
Ukraine
places forces on combat alert and threatens war as UN security
council meets
Ukraine’s
Navy flagship the Hetman Sahaidachny has come over to our side today.
It has hung out the St Andrew’s flag,” Senator Igor Morozov, a
member of the committee on the international affairs, told Izvestia
daily.
There
has been conflicting information on where exactly the vessel is, but
a Russian senator has confirmed to Izvestia daily that the frigate
defected to the Russian side.
He
said the flagship is on its way back to the Black Sea after drills in
the Mediterranean. “The crew has fulfilled the order by the chief
commander of Ukraine’s armed forces Viktor Yanukovich,” he added.
The
move comes after the Navy command resigned Friday. Self-appointed
President Aleksandr Turchinov made Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky the
new Navy Chief, a statement published on the President’s website
Saturday said.
Arseniy
Yatsenyuk, the Prime Minister of Ukraine had earlier asked his
Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to let the frigate
through the Bosporus strait, according to the Kiev Times. The ship
captain and the head of Ukraine’s contingent in the operation, Rear
Admiral Andrey Tarasov disobeyed orders from Kiev.
The
Hetman Sahaidachny returns to Sevastopol, Crimea after taking part in
a joint counter-piracy operation with NATO and the EU off the Horn of
Africa, reported UNN on Friday, citing Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
On February 26, after crossing the Suez Canal, the ship entered the
Mediterranean Sea and was expected to be in Sevastopol in early March
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/01/crimea-crisis-deepens-as-russia-and-ukraine-ready-forces-live-updates
Ukraine’s
acting president has said that Russia has no justification for its
aggression and has ordered the army to be put on “combat alert”.
The prime minister of Ukraine has said that Russian forces must
return to their bases in Crimea and any further military intervention
by Moscow will result in war
Ukraine Acting President Calls Emergency Meeting Of Security Chiefs; Russia Threatens To Cut Off The Gas
All
the dominoes are tumbling now. Moments after the Russian upper house
of parliament approved the decision to use Russian troops in the
Ukraine as expected, Ukraine's acting president called an emergency
meeting of security chiefs according to his spokeswoman. Oleksander
Turchinov summoned his Security Council after Russian President
Vladimir Putin sought parliamentary approval to deploy Russian forces
in the Ukrainian region of Crimea. At this point the biggest and
perhaps final wildcard is whether NATO does or does not get involved.
If it does, and if Russia does not back off - which it has clearly
telegraphed it won't - futures may be looking at a limit down open on
Sunday.
And
while military escalation is now an official reality instead of
merely YouTube clips of unidentified crap troops , Russia just sent
another major warning shot across the bow when it issued several
warnings on Saturday that Ukraine may lose a discount to the gas
price it now pays to Gazprom due to Kiev's outstanding gas debt.
Russia's state gas company Gazprom estimates Ukraine's outstanding
gas debt at $1.55 billion for 2013 and gas deliveries so far this
year. This of course, was Russia's trump card from the very
beginning.
Via Reuters:
Via Reuters:
"It seems that with such gas payments and fulfilment of its obligations Ukraine may not keep its current gas discount. The gas discount agreement assumed full and timely payment," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told Reuters.
A price increase would deepen Ukraine's already dire cash situation and could lead to a new "gas war" between Kiev and Moscow as well as interrupt gas shipments to Europe, which gets around third of its gas from Russia.
In December, Russia agreed to reduce gas prices for Kiev by about a third, to $268.50 per 1,000 cubic metres from around $400 which Ukraine had paid since 2009, after ousted President Viktor Yanukovich spurned an EU trade deal in favour of closer ties to Moscow.
The deal allowed for the price to be revised quarterly between the 5th and 10th day of the first month every quarter.
The news agency Interfax cited a representative of the Russian energy ministry as saying on Saturday that Moscow sees no reason to extend the discount to Ukraine for the second quarter - because of the outstanding debt.
"If this continues to happen, is there any point in continuing the existing agreement on gas supplies at discount prices? No," the agency cited an unnamed ministry representative as saying.
"It is important that the proposal for a reduced gas price is confirmed quarterly. It would be stupid and wrong to extend it to the second quarter."
Ukraine's newly appointed Energy Minister Yuri Prodan told reporters on Saturday that the price for Russian gas would stay unchanged in March but it could jump to around $400 per 1,000 cubic metres in the second quarter if the two sides fail to sign an agreement.
Ukraine, which has seen its currency spiralling down and cash and gold reserves falling significantly as a result of the political protests that led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovich last weekend, is in dire need of cash.
It faces a further $6 billion in foreign debt payments this year and has asked the International Monetary Fund for financial assistance of at least $15 billion. Ukraine's newly appointed leaders estimated Kiev's needs at around $35 billion.
Prodan told journalists that the Ukrainian energy firm Naftogas is in "active talks" with Gazprom over pricing. Ukraine consumes about 55 billion cubic meters of gas each year, and more than half of this amount is imported from Russia.
But
far more important than Ukraine, which is merely a sacrificial lamb
in the latest proxy war between east and west, is the Russian hint
that what is likely to happen to Ukraine's gas may soon hit Europe
too if it also gets involved.
Apart from through Ukraine, Russian gas flows to Europe via Belarus and two subsea pipelines - under the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. Gazprom plans to build another subsea pipeline - the South Stream - to bypass Ukraine by 2016.
So
check to you NATO: will you defend the territorial integrity of
Ukraine even as NATO actively pushed for a split in Yugoslavia some
15 years ago, or will it do the "right" thing... in the
dark?
Pro-Russian Protesters Storm Kharkiv City Administration Building; Russian Flags Hoisted Across East Ukraine
Even as Russia has officially deployed its military to the Ukraine, its unofficial involvement in The Crimean was well known for days. A much more notable development would be if protesters in the pro-Russian eastern part of the country were to seize control of the second largest city in the Ukraine, Kharkiv, located just miles from the Russian border as this would quickly give Russia a foothold into the east of the nation with the tactical escalation abilities such a takeover would entail. Which is why the following clip of pro-Russian protesters storming the city administration in Kharkiv is of importance: should Ukraine lose control of the city, or is forced to use troops against the people, it would be just the pretext Russia needs to "defend" citizens in this part of the country, the same argument it used for military intervention in the Crimean.
The
UNIAN news agency said thousands of people had gathered outside the
building during a protest against the country's new leaders who
ousted President Viktor Yanukovich a week ago.
The
violence signalled that Ukraine's new leaders could face a challenge
in mainly Russian-speaking regions that oppose the largely
pro-Western course charted by the newly installed government.
Kharkiv is not the only place where Pro-Russian forces are finally speaking up.
The
leaders of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with an ethnic Russian
majority that is home to a Russian naval base, say they have joined
forces with Russian servicemen to exert control over key buildings.
Russian
parliament has approved a proposal by President Vladimir Putin to
deploy troops in Ukraine.
Protests
against the new authorities also took place on Saturday in other
cities, including Odessa, Dnipro and Donetsk, Yanukovich's home town
and power base.
The
Russian flag was raised over the regional government building in
Donetsk by several thousand pro-Russia activists waving the Russian
tricolour and chanting "Russia! Russia!, witnesses said.
Russian flags are being put up across the east Ukraine (source Venoru):
Britain Summons Russian Ambassador; Russian Ambassador To US May Be Recalled
While
various organizations are scrambling to meet on short notice, or not
so short if one is a European finance minister, the diplomatic
fallout has begun with the summoning of the Russian Ambassador in
Great Britain to the foreign office.
This
was to be expected. More interest will be whether Russia will
"summon" its ambassador to the US as the upper house of
parliament has demanded of Putin:
Russia's upper house of parliament will ask President Vladimir Putin to recall Moscow's ambassador from the United States, the chamber's speaker said on Saturday.
Valentina Matviyenko, the head of the Federation Council, asked the Council's Committee on Foreign Affairs to draw up a proposal setting out the demands to Putin.
Now
all eyes are focused on the White House. Or perhaps that should say
on the nearby golf courses?
NSDC
announced a general
mobilization in Ukraine -
Parubiy
РНБО
оголосила загальну мобілізацію в Україні
- Парубій
Secretary
of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Andriy
Parubiy on your page in the social network Facebook wrote that
according to the decision of the National Security Council military
mobilization happening across Ukraine.
"Just
rang my assistants voyenkomatu with orders to arrive at 8:00 am as
planned mobilization.
According
to the decision of the National Security Council mobilization
happening across the country, "- wrote Parubiy.
Recall,
March 1, Federation Council supported the appeal Russian President
Vladimir Putin and agreed to the introduction of the Russian Armed
Forces in the Crimea.
Acting
President of Ukraine Turchynov said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine
is given in full combat readiness, and the Foreign Ministry of
Ukraine transferred the appeal to NATO to consider the use of all
opportunities to protect the territorial integrity
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