Russia boosts forces in Crimea as Putin tells UN vote utterly legal
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RUSSIA shipped more troops and armor into Crimea yesterday and repeated its threat to invade other parts of Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to the death of at least one protester in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk, repeated President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the right to invade to protect Russian citizens and compatriots.
“Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection,” it said.
Ukrainian health authorities said one 22-year-old man was stabbed to death and at least 15 others were being treated in hospital after clashes in Donetsk, the mainly Russian-speaking home city of Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovich.
Moscow denies that its forces are intervening in Crimea, an assertion Washington ridicules as “Putin’s fiction.”
A Russian warship unloaded trucks, troops and at least one armored personnel carrier at Kazachaya bay near Sevastopol yesterday morning. Trucks drove off a ramp from the Yamal 156, a large landing ship that can carry more than 300 troops and up to a dozen APCs.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday that the West and Russia do not share a common view of the situation in Ukraine after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in London.
“We have no common vision of the situation. Differences remain,” said Lavrov.
Lavrov yesterday reaffirmed that Russia would “respect the will of the Crimean people” in the referendum result.
Putin yesterday rejected Western accusations that a referendum on whether Crimea should join Russia would be illegal, making clear the vote would go ahead as planned tomorrow.
In a telephone conversation with UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon, Putin “underscored that the decision to conduct (the referendum) fully corresponds to the norms of international law and the UN Charter,” the Kremlin said.
Russian troops seized the southern Ukrainian region two weeks ago as a pro-Moscow regional government took power there. The new regional authorities intend to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
“What we would like to see is a commitment to stop putting new facts on the ground and a commitment to engage seriously on ways to de-escalate the conflict, to bring Russian forces back to barracks, to use international observers in place of force to achieve legitimate political and human rights objectives,” a US State Department official said ahead of Kerry’s talks.
Putin declared on March 1 that Russia had the right to invade its neighbor, a week after Yanukovich fled the Ukrainian capital Kiev following three months of demonstrations that ended with about 100 people killed in the final days.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said yesterday it would hold exercises with fighter jets and helicopters over the Mediterranean Sea. On Thursday it announced artillery drills near Ukraine’s border.
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