SEVASTOPOL, Crimea – After blocking Ukrainian military bases in Crimea on March 2, Russia issued ultimatums to the Ukrainian army on March 3 to surrender by 5 a.m. on March 4 or face a “military storm.”
The deadline for surrender passed this morning, however, with no immediate reports of conflict.
The heightened tension came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kyiv for meetings on March 4 with Ukraine’s new interim government led by Oleksandr Turchinov as president and Arseniy Yatseniuk as prime minister.
The United States and much of the West are strongly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and many Western leaders are promising to isolate the Kremlin with economic and other sanctions.
“The world is largely united in recognizing that the steps Russia has taken are a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, their territorial integrity – that they’re a violation of international law,” Obama said at the White House on March 3.
Obama stressed that Russia is “on the wrong side of history” in Ukraine and called on the U.S. Congress to adopt an assistance package to the Ukrainian government as a “first order of business.”
The diplomatic wrangling comes as Ukrainian nerves are being jangled by the Russian military presence and repeated threats of attack.
“If they (Ukrainian troops) do not
give up by 5 a.m. tomorrow (March 4), there will be a real
storm of subdivisions and units of Ukraine’s military forces all over
Crimea,” Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Aleksandr Vitko was
quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
Russia’s
Foreign Ministry called the ultimatums “utter
nonsense” and denied making them. The Ukrainian defense and foreign ministries insisted
that the threats happened, if only as part of Russia’s psychological
warfare against Ukraine.
At 5:20 a.m. on March 4, EuroMaidanSOS reported “no news-good news” on its Facebook page some 20 minutes after the 5 a.m. deadline for Ukraine’s surrender. EuroMaidanSOS was set up by EuroMaidan demonstrators to warn of threats.
There were also no reports this morning from any wire services of military conflict. If true, then Russia has issued yet another ultimatum — the third one this month — calling on Ukrainian forces to surrender while letting the deadline expire without taking action.
Turchynov said the Russians gave an ultimatum to surrender by March 2, a deadline that passed without incident. Also, the
Russian commander gave the Ukrainian Navy an ultimatum to give
up by 7 p.m. on March 3, or else face an attack, another deadline that passed without incident.
In
Sevastopol’s Korennaya Bay, troops aboard the Ukrainian warship
Slavutych scurried frantically atop its deck with automatic weapons
in hand on March 3, as a warship from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet circled
ominously some 200 meters in front of it, blaring the ultimatum from
its on-board speakers. In preparation to defend, Ukrainian troops spread mattresses across the ship’s rails and readied water hoses on its deck.
“Attention… you must surrender your weapons,” the almost inaudible
message said.
Tension, nonetheless, remains high after fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych sent a
letter to Russia’s Security Council, asking to use
the Russian military to restore law and order in Ukraine.
Some 13,000 Russian troops had
assembled in Crimea over the past week, according to a former senior
Russian fleet officer based in Sevastopol. Some were flown in by
airplanes and helicopters, other arrive across the Kerch straight.
Moreover, Russian military forces
accumulated in Rostov and Voronezh regions, just a few kilometers
away from Ukraine’s border, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy
Deshchytsia said. He also said more troops were spotted across the eastern border with Luhansk Oblast.
Crimea expected its
first attack after Russian troops methodically took over the peninsula since Feb. 27 without firing a shot.
“It
is incredibly tense in Crimea right now, with ultimatums given to
troops at almost all Ukrainian military bases here,” Oleg Chubuk, a
spokesman of Ukraine’s defense ministry, told the Kyiv Post. “But
our guns are under our control.”
Elsewhere
on the peninsula, Russian soldiers faced down their Ukrainian
counterparts.
At
Belbek Military Airfield near Sevastopol, Russian soldiers were said
to have convinced several Ukrainian troops to defect.
The news
came from pro-Russian members of a loose-knit group of men calling
themselves Crimean Self-Defense, who had barricaded the entrance to
the airport and did not allow journalists inside. Their report could
not be independently confirmed by the Kyiv Post, and Ukrainian
authorities denied that any troops had surrendered, except for Rear Admiral
Denys Berezovskiy.
Berezovskiy was appointed Navy commander on March 1, and then gave oath to the
self-proclaimed Crimean government a day later. He was replaced on
the same day by Rear Admiral Serhiy Hayduk, and is now under
investigation for treason, Ukraine’s National Security Council said.
Despite few defections, the red-white-and-blue Russian flags were raised
over many strategic objects in Crimea as Russian soldiers wearing military fatigues, no insignia, dried Russian armored personnel vehicles and patrolled the roads.
At
a small Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoye, a tiny town some 33
kilometers outside the Crimean capital Simferopol, a standoff that
began on March 2 continued, as dozens of Russian troops in forest
green fatigues, helmets and face masks, with their automatic weapons
locked and loaded, stared down their Slavic brethren through rod iron
gates.
While
both sides had agreed, when Russian troops stormed in with more than
30 military vehicles and surrounded the base, not to point the
muzzles of their rifles at one another, neither group had laid down
their arms or retreated from their position, with Ukrainian soldiers
saying they would remain there as long as necessary and serve Ukraine
as they swore an oath to do so.
At
Perevalnoye, Russian soldiers were joined by others from the rag-tag
group of self-professed Crimean Self-Defense who worked to keep
journalists from approaching the hundreds of Russian troops and few
Ukrainian soldiers at the gates of the military compound. Some of the
men spoke on camera for several international media, saying that they
were there to protect from fascists and provocateurs from Kyiv who
were en route to Crimea and would try to destabilize the peninsula.
Tempers
at the base flared briefly as men from the group argued with
journalists and blamed them for spreading lies.
Father
Ivan, a Ukrainian Orthodox Priest who has lived in Crimea for 17
years but is originally form Kyiv, attempted to intervene, but was
heckled by one of the men, Vladimir, who declined to give his last
name, and other men in the Crimean Self-Defense group as a
provocateur for speaking in Ukrainian.
“When
people come and tell you how to live your own life, this is very bad.
It is very hard now to keep peace,” Father Ivan said. “I hope
that in a week this situation will de-escalate.”
As
he worked to keep the intensifying crowd calm and fresh Russian
troops replaced those who had stood guard throughout the night, life
went on as usual in the typically sleepy valley town of Perevalnoye.
Children
laughed and played in the yards of nearby apartment complexes, old
men ate sunflower seeds and chatted on benches, buses ran as usual
and stores were open for business.
Vera
Kanayeva, a Perevalnoye resident since 1953, said that not much had
changed since the Russian troops had come to town.
“It
was quiet here in the Soviet Union, and it’s quiet here now,” she
said.
Another
woman, Yulia, said that her husband was stuck inside the Ukrainian
base. While he and her both align more closely politically and
ideologically with Russia, she said, they decided together that he
would protect the base as he had promised to do so upon joining the
military.
“It’s
this new government in Kyiv making Russia and Ukraine fight,” she
said. “These are brother nations; they shouldn’t fight. But this
is what it’s come to.”
Kanayeva
agreed. “(Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr) Turchynov and
(newly appointed Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatseniuk are to blame for
starting a war in the country,” she told the Kyiv Post, adding that
what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing, sending troops to
Ukraine, is “right.”
“I
am a Russian stuck in Ukrainian Crimea,” she said. “But Putin
will free me and the others.”
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at[email protected], or on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
