Russian Crimea declared independence from Ukraine

The Parliament in pro-Russian Crimea declared independence from Ukraine as a first step towards joining Russia.

Lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly adopted a “declaration of independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” that will take effect if voters say “yes” to Crimea becoming part of Russia in a referendum set for coming Sunday.

The referendum will ask the people of Crimea to choose between joining Russia and staying with Ukraine as a self-governed autonomy.

The declaration referred to Kosovo's secession from Serbia, which was endorsed by the United Nations International Court of Justice.

Crimean Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov said the declaration was needed “to make the upcoming referendum legitimate and transparent.”

Ukraine’s Parliament in Kiev hit back threatening to dissolve the Crimean legislature unless it cancels the referendum. In a resolution passed on Tuesday Ukrainian legislators gave the Crimean parliament until Wednesday to comply.

Mr Konstantinov said Crimea will never be part of Ukraine again.

“We are going our own way and we’re trying to do it quickly,” he told reporters in Simferopol, capital of Crimea.

The United States appears to have abandoned hope to persuade Russia to back off on Crimea. Secretary of State John Kerry declined a Russian invitation to visit Moscow this week for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement that Mr Kerry “would welcome further discussions… if and when we see concrete evidence that Russia is prepared to engage on [U.S.] proposals.”

Washington wants Moscow to stop the Crimea referendum and open direct talks with the new government in Kiev. Russia has refused to recognise the new authorities and insisted on rolling back the situation to February 21, when President Viktor Yanukovych signed a West-brokered peace accord with the opposition. The deal fell through the same day as armed protesters stormed government offices and Mr Yanukovych fled Kiev.

Moscow made its point again on Tuesday when Mr Yanukovych reaffirmed that he was still Ukraine’s legitimate President and that power in Kiev had been grabbed by a “band of ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists” bent on starting a “civil war.”

“I declare that presidential elections appointed for May 25 by the clique who seized power in an unconstitutional coup will be absolutely illegitimate and unlawful,” Mr Yanokovych said in a statement he read out in Rostov-on-Don a week after his first press conference in Russia, where he has found shelter.

Contrary to expectations Mr Yanukovych said nothing about the coming referendum in Crimea, apart from mentioning that Crimea was “splitting away” through the fault of the new Ukrainian authorities.

In fresh military muscle flexing Russia launched on Tuesday a second massive war drill this month. The Defence Ministry said 3,500 paratroopers will be dropped from 36 warplanes at an undisclosed location during the three-day “anti-terrorist” exercise, the first such drill in 20 years. Earlier in March Russia held snap war games involving 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s border.

Ukraine crisis live updates: Pro-Russia protesters occupy govt building in Donetsk

5.19 pm: Pro-Russia protesters occupy regional govt in Donetsk

DONETSK: Pro-Russian demonstrators occupied the first floor of the regional government building in east Ukraine's city of Donetsk on Monday.
A Reuters reporter in a press centre on the fourth floor of the building said the protesters had seized the first floor but were unable to go higher because lifts were disabled and stairwell doors shut.
The 11-storey building has been flying the Russian flag, rather than the Ukrainian flag, for three days, with demonstrators carrying Russian flags staging rallies outside. - Reuters

5.05 pm: EU to urge mediation with Russia over Ukraine

BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers will push on Monday for high-level mediation to resolve the crisis over Russia's invasion of Crimea, while threatening the possibility of sanctions if Russia does not back down.
In emergency talks convened after Russian President Vladimir Putin seized the Crimean peninsula and said he had the right to invade Ukraine, ministers will try to strike a balance between pressure on Moscow and finding a way to calm the situation.
Germany, France and Britain, the EU's most-powerful nations, are all advocating mediation to resolve the crisis, possibly via the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, while not ruling out economic measures if Moscow does not cooperate.
"Crisis diplomacy is not a weakness but it will be more important than ever to not fall into the abyss of military escalation," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters as he arrived for the talks in Brussels. - Reuters
 

A Ukrainian woman looks at military personnel, believed to be Russian servicemen, standing outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol on March 3, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

5 pm: Ukraine increases Russian gas imports, braces for price hike
KIEV/LONDON: Ukraine has increased gas imports from Russiaover the last few days, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly said on Monday, amid warnings that state gas producer Gazprom might scrap a discount on prices.
As concerns grow over gas supplies after Russian President Vladimir Putin won parliamentary approval to invade Ukraine, analysts say Kiev is trying to import as much gas as possible at the lower prices.
Moscow, enraged with Ukraine's new pro-EU government, has warned Kiev it could lose the discount it currently gets from Gazprom due to Kiev's outstanding gas debt.
"We doubled our gas imports from Russia. We imported 45 million cubic metres of gas on March 1, 2014, compared with 20 million on March 1, 2013," said Maxim Belyavsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly Ukrtransgas.
Ukraine is a major buyer of gas from Gazprom, which exported almost 26 bcm of gas to its neighbour last year, more than half of the 50.4 bcm it consumed. - Reuters

4.53 pm: Russian fighter jets violated Ukraine's air space, says ministry

KIEV: Russian fighter jets twice violated Ukraine's air space over the Black Sea during the night, Interfax news agency quoted the Defence Ministry as saying on Monday.
It said Ukraine's air force had scrambled a Sukhoi SU-27 interceptor aircraft and prevented any "provocative actions" but gave no further details. - Reuters

4.50 pm: Still not too late for peaceful solution in Ukraine, says Merkel aide
BERLIN: Germany's Angela Merkel believes it is not too late to resolve the Ukrainian crisis by political means despite differences in opinion betweenVladimir Putin and the West on Crimea, which Russia now controls, an aide to the chancellor said on Monday.
Merkel has proposed to the Russian president Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama sending a "fact-finding mission" to the Ukrainian region of Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea where Russian forces have seized control without any fighting.
"It is still not to late to resolve this crisis peacefully by political means," said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, urging Moscow to withdraw "from the logic of troop movements".
"There is no doubt President Putin has a completely different view on the situation and events in Crimea from the German government and our Western partners," he said. - Reuters

A pro-Russian soldier stands by a billboard with a map of Crimea and bearing the words Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the port of Kerch in Ukraine on March 3, 2014. AP/Darko Vojinovic

4.45 pm: UN Chief Will Urge Russia To De-Escalate Ukraine Crisis

Geneva: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday that he would ask Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia refrain from any acts or rhetoric that would further escalate the crisis in Ukraine and instead seek dialogue with authorities in Kiev.

Ban said that his deputy Jan Eliasson, who had just arrived in Kiev, would "convey the same message to Ukrainian authorities".
"It is now of utmost importance to restore calm and to de-escalate tensions immediately through dialogue," Ban told a news conference in Geneva shortly before holding talks with Lavrov.

"I will urge that the Russian Federation refrain from any acts and rhetoric that could further escalate the situation and instead to engage constructively and through peaceful means with Ukraine." -Reuters

4.30 pm: Russian Foreign Minister Tells West To Put Ukrainian People First

Moscow: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday rejected accusations that Russia is acting aggressively toward Ukraine and accused the West of putting its own "geopolitical calculations" ahead of the fate of the people in the former Soviet republic.
At a U.N. human rights meeting in Geneva, Lavrov tried to turn the tables following a hail of Western criticism after President Vladimir Putin secured permission from lawmakers to send the military into Ukraine.

"We call for a responsible approach, to put aside geopolitical calculations, and above all to put the interests of the Ukrainian people first," he said on a live feed broadcast to Moscow.

While the Kremlin says Putin has not decided to send troops into Ukraine, Western states say Russian forces have already taken control of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with a Russian majority. -Reuters

Russian actions in Ukraine threaten Europe: NATO chief

Russia’s military actions in Ukraine pose a threat to Europe, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Sunday ahead of special talks by the alliance’s ambassadors on the crisis.

“What Russia is doing now in Ukraine violates the principles of the United Nations charter. It threatens peace and security in Europe.

Russia must stop its military activities and these threats (against Ukraine),” he told journalists in Brussels.

“Ukraine is our neighbour and Ukraine is a valued partner for NATO,” he added. “We support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. We support the right of the people of Ukraine to determine their own future without outside interference.” The ambassadors are holding consultations at the request of Poland and Lithuania, which have invoked Article 4 of the NATO charter. It allows for consultations if a member state feels threatened.

Russian troops surround Crimea

Earlier, a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops headed towards the regional capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region on Sunday, a day after Russia’s forces took over the strategic Black Sea peninsula without firing a shot.

The new government in Kiev has been powerless to react. Ukraine’s Parliament was meeting Sunday in a closed session.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.

There has been no sign of ethnic Russians facing attacks in Crimea, where they make up about 60 percent of the population, or elsewhere in Ukraine. Russia maintains an important naval base on Crimea.

President Barack Obama spoke with Putin by telephone for 90 minutes on Saturday and expressed his “deep concern” about “Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said. But the U.S. and other Western governments had few options to counter Russia’s military moves.

NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political decision-making body, and the NATO-Ukraine Commission were to meet on Sunday. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies will “coordinate closely” on the situation in Ukraine, which he termed “grave.”

Ukraine is not a NATO member, meaning the U.S. and Europe are not obligated to come to its defense. But Ukraine has taken part in some alliance military exercises and contributed troops to its response force.

On the road from Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia has its naval base, to Simferopol on Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists saw 12 military trucks carrying troops, a Tiger vehicle armed with a machine gun and also two ambulances.

Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, announced late Saturday that he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to be at full readiness because of the threat of “potential aggression.” He also said he had ordered stepped-up security at nuclear power plants, airports and other strategic infrastructure.

On Crimea, however, Ukrainian troops have offered no resistance.

The new government came to power last week following months of pro-democracy protests against the now-fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his decision to turn Ukraine toward Russia, its longtime patron, instead of the European Union.

Ukraine’s population of 46 million is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the EU, while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea, a semi-autonomous region that Russia gave to Ukraine in the 1950s, is mainly Russian-speaking.

Ukraine Interior Minister: Russian military blocking Sevastopol airport

Simferopol airport operations reported normal after armed men, wearing similar gear to a group of 100 gunmen who stormed the Crimean parliament and raised the Russian flag, entered the building

Russian military were blocking an airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Crimea, near the Russian naval base, while unidentified men were patrolling another airport serving the regional capital Simferopol, Ukraine’s new Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Friday.

Mr. Avakov wrote in a Facebook post that the Belbek international airport in Sevastopol was blocked by military units of the Russian navy. “I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation,” he said.

The Russian foreign ministry refused to comment while a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry was not available for comment.

Early on Friday, around 50 armed men in military uniform arrived in three trucks without licence plates and surrounded the domestic flights terminal at the airport of Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, before moving on to other parts of the site, Interfax-Ukraine news agency cited witnesses as saying.

An Associated Press photographer saw military men armed with assault rifles on Friday morning patrolling the airport. The men, who were wearing uniforms without any insignia, refused to talk to journalists, and it was not immediately clear who they were.

The men wore similar gear to a group of 100 gunmen who stormed the Crimean parliament on Thursday and raised the Russian flag over the building, the report said.

The armed men since left the building, according to broadcaster Russia Today.

The airport appeared to be operating normally, with flights landing and taking off, RIA-Novosti news agency quoted a worker at the airport as saying. The airport’s website showed flights arriving and departing on schedule.

On Thursday, masked gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles seized the parliament and government offices in Simferopol and raised the Russian flag over the parliament building.

The events in the Crimea region have heightened tensions with neighbouring Russia. It scrambled fighter jets on Thursday to patrol borders in the first stirrings of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.

Russia also has granted shelter to Ukraine’s fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, after recent deadly protests in Kiev swept in a new government.

Mr. Yanukovych has a news conference scheduled Friday in Russia’s south near the Ukrainian border. He has not been seen publicly since Saturday, and he declared on Thursday in a statement that he remains Ukraine’s legitimate president.

Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday elected a new government led by a pro-Western technocrat who promptly pledged to prevent any national break-up.

Moscow has been sending mixed signals about Ukraine but pledged to respect its territorial integrity. Ukraine’s population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.

It only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

In a bid to shore up Ukraine’s fledgling administration, the International Monetary Fund has said it is “ready to respond” to Ukraine’s bid for financial assistance. The European Union is also considering emergency loans for a country that is the chief conduit of Russian natural gas to Western Europe.

Ukraine’s finance ministry has said it needs $35 billion over the next two years to avoid default.