Ukraine severs key ties with Russia over Crimea Thursday, 20 March 2014 01:48 Posted by Muhammad Iqbal 1021KIEV: Ukraine announced plans on Wednesday to drop out of a key post-Soviet alliance and slap entry visas on Russians while also preparing for a possible Crimean withdrawal following the Kremlins absorption of the peninsula. Kievs first firm response to Russias claim to the strategic Black Sea peninsula came as a deadline expired on an ultimatum set by the acting president for Crimeas separatist leaders to release the captured head of the Ukrainian navy or face an adequate response. The spiralling crisis prompted the White House to warn Russia it was creating a dangerous situation and the NATO commander to call the Kremlins seizure of Crimea the gravest threat to European security and stability since the end of the Cold War. Germany for its part said it was suspending a major arms deal with Moscow a signal that Washingtons EU allies were willing to take more serious punitive steps against the Kremlin despite their heavy dependence on Russian energy supplies. Even US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said a further escalation would certainly be something that would be on our radar screen as the central bank charts a course for the worlds largest economy. But Moscow appeared ready to up the diplomatic stakes by warning Washington it was preparing a wide range of countermeasures should the United States follow through on threats to impose broad economic sanctions against Russia. Three-hour ultimatum: Pro-Russian forces had earlier seized two Crimean navy bases and detained Ukraines naval chief as Moscow tightened its grip on the flashpoint peninsula despite Western warnings that its annexation would not go unpunished. Dozens of despondent Ukrainian soldiers one of them in tears filed out of Ukraines main navy headquarters in the historic Black Sea port city of Sevastopol after it was stormed by hundreds of pro-Kremlin protesters and masked Russian troops. The local prosecutors office said Ukraines navy commander Sergiy Gayduk appointed after his predecessor switched allegiance in favour of Crimeas pro-Kremlin authorities at the start of the month had been detained on suspicion of ordering Ukrainian military units to open fire on peaceful civilians. Gayduks capture delivered a huge blow to efforts by the new team of untested pro-Western leaders in Kiev to impose some authority in their crisis-hit country in the face of an increasingly assertive Kremlin. Ukraines acting president Oleksandr Turchynov scheduled an urgent security meeting and issued a statement around 6:00 pm giving the Crimean authorities until 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) to release the commander and other hostages. Unless Admiral Gayduk and all the other hostages both military and civilian ones are released, the authorities will carry out an adequate response of a technical and technological nature. He did not specify what those measures would entail. But Ukraines National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy said Kiev had decided to withdraw from the Moscow-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) alliance that replaced the Soviet Union and to slap visas on Russians who sought to enter the country in response to the Kremlins Crimean claim. Parubiy added that Ukraine was also developing a contingency plan to withdraw Crimean servicemen and their family members so that they could be quickly and efficiently moved to mainland Ukraine. Putin defiant: A defiant President Vladimir Putin had brushed aside global indignation and Western sanctions on Tuesday to sign a treaty absorbing Crimea and expanding Russias borders for the first time since World War II. Russias Constitutional Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that the treaty complies with the Russian constitution after a disputed Sunday referendum in Crimea showed nearly 97 percent supporting a shift from Ukrainian to Kremlin rule. Kiev and the West have dismissed the referendum as illegal. Putins hugely controversial treaty signing came less than a month after the ouster in Kiev of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych by leaders who spearheaded three months of deadly protests aimed at pulling Ukraine out of the Kremlins orbit. The Russian leader responded by winning the right to use force against his ex-Soviet neighbour and then employing the help of local militias to seize Crimea a region the size of Belgium that is home to two million people as well as Russias Black Sea Fleet. The explosive security crisis on the EUs eastern frontier now threatens to reopen a diplomatic and ideological chasm between Russia and Western powers not seen since the tension-fraught decades preceding the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday that next weeks meeting of leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) most developed economies must discuss Russias permanent expulsion from the wider G8 political grouping to which Moscow was accepted in 1998 as its reward for pursuing a democratic course. United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon will meet with Putin in Moscow on Thursday before holding talks with Ukraines interim leaders in Kiev on Friday to encourage a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Eastern threat: Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Washington on Wednesday that Moscow was preparing an entire series of asymmetrical measures should the United States hit his country with economic trade restriction or other more severe steps. Ryabkov said these measures covered a number of areas of dialogue that are important to the Americans and hinted that Russia could raise the stakes in the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks. The greatest fear facing Kievs new leaders and the West is that Putin will push huge forces massed along the Ukrainian border into the Russian-speaking southeastern swathes of the country in a self-professed effort to protect compatriots he claims are coming under attack from violent ultra-nationalists. We are not speaking about military actions in the eastern regions of Ukraine, Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC. But Russia will do whatever is possible to protect and to extend a hand of help to Russians living in eastern regions of Ukraine.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:51:22 +0000
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