Putin celebrates Victory Day, as fighting goes on
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IN a triumphant spectacle, President Vladimir Putin yesterday hailed the return of Crimea to Russia as the restoration of “historic justice” before a jubilant crowd on the holiday that Russians hold dearest to their hearts.
Yet Putin’s first trip to the Black Sea peninsula since its annexation in March was strongly criticized by both NATO and Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, which said it trampled on Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law.
To the east, at least three people died and the main police station in the city of Mariupol was set ablaze in fierce fighting yesterday between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russia rebels. The government said up to 20 people were killed.
Ukraine is struggling with its most serious crisis in decades as pro-Russia insurgents in the east fight the government in Kiev and prepare to hold a referendum on secession tomorrow.
Show of muscle
Putin’s two Victory Day celebrations, which included a massive show of military muscle in the annual Red Square parade in Moscow and another in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, rubbed salt in the wounds of the interim government in Kiev without ever once mentioning its name.
Victory Day is Russia’s most important secular holiday and a key element of its national identity, honoring the armed forces and the millions who died in World War II.
Tens of thousands flooded the Crimean port of Sevastopol to watch Putin aboard a boat sail past a line of Russian Black Sea Fleet ships anchored in the bay.
In his speech, Putin hailed the incorporation of Crimea’s 2 million people as a “return to the Motherland” and a tribute to the “historical justice and memory of our ancestors.”
The peninsula was transferred to Ukraine in 1954 during Soviet times.
Fighting exploded yesterday in Mariupol, a city of 500,000 on the main road between Russia proper and Crimea.
The Donetsk regional administration said three people were killed and 25 wounded during the fighting. But Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov claimed 20 “terrorists” and a police officer were killed in the fighting that erupted after 60 gunmen tried to capture the police station.
Avakov said the government would negotiate with those in the east who want to sit down for talks but vowed to destroy those who take up arms.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen repeated his stance that Crimea was not part of Russia .
“We consider the annexation of Crimea to be illegal.”
Earlier in Moscow, Putin watched as 11,000 Russian troops marched across Red Square, followed by tanks and rocket launchers as 70 combat aircraft roared overhead.
The West and the Ukrainian government accuse Russia of fomenting the unrest in Ukraine’s east, where insurgents have seized dozens of government buildings. The insurgents are holding a referendum on independence tomorrow in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Putin’s surprise call on Wednesday for rebels to delay the referendum appeared to reflect Russia’s desire to distance itself from the separatists. He also said Russia had withdrawn its forces from the Ukrainian border, but Pentagon and NATO repeated that they had seen no evidence of a pullback.
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