KIEV, Ukraine — OVER the past two weeks, residents of Kiev have lived through its bloodiest conflict since the Second World War, watched their reviled president flee and a new, provisional team take charge, seen Russian troops take control of part of the country, and heard Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, assert his right to take further military action. Yet the Ukrainian capital is calm.
Revolutions often falter on Day 2, as Ukraine has already bitterly learned twice — once after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and then again in 2005 after the Orange Revolution. That could happen again, but the new revolution is enjoying a prolonged honeymoon, thanks to Mr. Putin, whose intervention in Ukrainian foreign and trade policy provoked the uprising in the first place, and whose invasion has, paradoxically, increased its chance of long-term success.
Kiev smells like a smoky summer camp, from the bonfires burning to keep the demonstrators still out on Independence Square warm, but every day it is tidier. Sidewalks in the city center are checkerboarded with neat piles of bricks that had been dug up to serve as missiles and are now being put back.
The police, despised for their corruption and repression, are returning to work. Their squad cars often sport Ukrainian flags and many have a “self-defense” activist from the protests with them. A Western ambassador told me that the activists were there to protect the cops from angry citizens. My uncle, who lives here, said they were also there to stop the police from slipping back into their old ways and demanding bribes.
This revolution may yet be eaten by its own incompetence or by infighting. A presidential election is scheduled for May, and the race, negative campaigning and all, has quietly begun. The oligarchs, some of whom have cannily been appointed governors of the potentially restive eastern regions, are jockeying for power. But for now, Ukrainians, who were brought together by shared hatred of the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, are being brought closer still by the Kremlin-backed invasion.
“Yanukovych freed Ukraine and Putin is uniting it,” said Iegor Soboliev, a 37-year-old ethnic Russian who heads a government commission to vet officials of the former regime. “Ukraine is functioning not through its government but through the self-organization of its people and their sense of human decency.”
Mr. Soboliev is a former investigative journalist who grew frustrated that carefully documented revelations of government misbehavior — which he says “wasn’t merely corruption, it was marauding” — were having no impact. He and a few friends formed Volya, a movement dedicated to creating a country of “responsible citizens” and a “state worthy of their trust.”
“People in Odessa, Mykolaiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk are coming out to defend their country,” Mr. Soboliev said. “They have never liked the western Ukrainian, Galician point of view. But they are showing themselves to be equally patriotic. They are defending their country from foreign aggression. Fantastical things are happening.”
This conflict could flare into Europe’s first major war of the 21st century, and Crimea may never again be part of Ukraine. But no matter what happens over the next few months, or even years, Mr. Putin and his vision of an authoritarian, Russian-dominated former Soviet space have already lost. Democratic, independent Ukraine, and the messy, querulous (but also free and law-abiding) European idea have won.
So far, the only certain victory is the ideological one. Many outsiders have interpreted the past three months as a Yugoslav-style ethno-cultural fight. It is nothing of the kind. This is a political struggle. Notwithstanding the bloodshed, the best parallel is with Prague’s Velvet Revolution of 1989. The emphasis there on changing society’s moral tone, and each person’s behavior, was likewise central to the protests that overthrew Mr. Yanukovych.
For Ukraine, as well as for Russia and much of the former U.S.S.R., the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was only a partial revolution. The U.S.S.R. vanished, but the old nomenklatura, and its venal, authoritarian style of governance remained. Mr. Putin is explicitly drawing on that heritage and fitfully trying to reshape it into a new state capitalist system that can compete and flourish globally. An alliance with Mr. Yanukovych’s Ukraine was an essential part of that plan.
That effort has now failed. Whatever Mr. Putin achieves in Ukraine, it will not be partnership with a Slavic younger brother enthusiastically joining in his neo-imperialist, neo-Soviet project.
The unanswered question is whether Ukraine can be a practical success. The economy needs a total structural overhaul — and that huge shift needs to be accomplished while either radically transforming, or creating from scratch, effective government institutions.
This is the work Central Europe and the Baltic states did in the 1990s. Their example shows that it can be done, but it takes a long time, requires a patient and united populace, and probably also the promise of European partnership.
The good news is that Ukraine may finally have achieved the necessary social unity. The bad news is that it isn’t clear if Europe, struggling with its economic malaise and ambivalence toward its newish eastern members, has the stomach to tutor and support Ukraine as it did the Visegrad countries — Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland — and the Baltic states.
THIS should be Ukraine’s biggest problem. But with Russian forces in Crimea, the more urgent question Kiev faces is whether it will find itself at war.
The answer depends in large part on Russia. Sergei Kovalev, a former dissident who became a member of the Russian Parliament in the 1990s, once told me that a good rule for understanding Russian strongmen was that “eating increases the appetite.” Mr. Putin has thus far lived up to that aphorism.
Thanks to his agility in Syria, his successful hosting of the Sochi Olympics and even, at first, his masterful manipulation of Mr. Yanukovych, Mr. Putin has won himself something of a reputation as a master strategist. But he has made a grave miscalculation in Ukraine.
For one thing, Mr. Putin misunderstands the complexities of language and ethnicity in Ukraine. Certainly, Ukraine is diverse, and language, history and culture play a role in some of its internal differences — just as they do in blue- and red-state America, in northern and southern Italy, or in the north and the south of England.
The error is to believe there is a fratricidal separation between Russian and Ukrainian speakers and to assume that everyone who speaks Russian at home or voted for Mr. Yanukovych would prefer to be a citizen of Mr. Putin’s Russia. The reality of Ukraine is that everyone in the country speaks and understands Russian and everyone at least understands Ukrainian. On television, in Parliament, and in the streets, bilingual discussions are commonplace.
Mr. Putin seems to have genuinely believed that Ukraine was Yugoslavia, and that his forces would be warmly welcomed by at least half of the country. As Leonid D. Kuchma, a former president of Ukraine and once a senior member of the Soviet military-industrial complex, told me: “His advisers must have thought they would be met in eastern Ukraine with flowers as liberators. The reality is 180 degrees opposite.”
Many foreign policy realists wish the Ukrainian revolution hadn’t happened. They would rather Ukraine had more fully entered the corrupt, authoritarian zone the Kremlin is seeking to consolidate. But we don’t get to choose for Ukraine — Ukrainians do, and they have. Now we have to choose for ourselves.
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WASHINGTON — IF you can’t spell it, you can’t get it.
President Obama pulled a Quayle Thursday night at a White House performance by the women of soul and muffed the title of Aretha Franklin’s anthem. “R-S-P-E-C-T,” he said, looking a bit confused and eliciting laughter.
When Patti LaBelle took the stage, she told Obama, “Baby, you’ve got swag.”
Swag and respect are exactly what the president needs. He’s got a swag gap with Russia. His administration, after belatedly figuring out what was going on in Ukraine, is improvising as the uber-swaggering Vladimir Putin once more rolls in with tanks anywhere he likes.
But the president is severely constrained in how he can respond, given that the Europeans are reluctant to be very punitive because they’re worried about their energy supplies and have to play nice with the bully on their borders.
He’s doing what seems appropriate at this point — putting a ban on U.S. visas, imposing financial sanctions on “individuals and entities” responsible for Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and trying to horse-whisper the Botoxed, bare-chested man on horseback whose eyes read “K.G.B.,” as John McCain likes to say.
The right wing seems risible, swooning over Pooty-Poot, as W. dubbed Putin. They gleefully claim the Russian strongman is Carterizing Obama and act huffy that the only one parachuting into Kiev is John Kerry. “What are you going to do, send the 101st Airborne into Crimea?” says Terry McCarthy, the president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. “The way Republicans are dumping on the president, saying anything short of Armageddon shows that he’s weak, is silly. It’s kind of shocking that foreign policy, which used to be nonpartisan, now becomes partisan so quickly.”
Speaker John Boehner said congressional Republicans were “trying to give the president tools that he might employ that would strengthen his hand in dealing with this very difficult problem.”
More calculating conservatives pounced. Trying to rehabilitate himself, Marco Rubio told a CPAC audience here that America must “stand up to the spread of totalitarianism.”
Sarah Palin, who seems ever more viperish, deployed her Yoda syntax with Sean Hannity: “People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”
Actually, the jeans the president wore in the Oval Office, talking to Putin on the phone last weekend, looked good.
And his Russia response is a positive contrast with Syria, where Obama came across as naval-gazing and feckless when he dithered and then drew a “red line” against Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons. He was still explaining to the press why he had decided on military action while Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the Brits were yanking the rug out from under him.
The place where Obama really looks weak right now is at home.
Even after Democrats changed the filibuster rule and rigged the game in the Senate to get nominees through on a majority vote, the White House got whacked over its nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Bryan Cranston has said he hopes Obama comes to see his new L.B.J. play on Broadway to learn a little about horse-trading. The sooner, the better. The president and Harry Reid upended the entire Senate to get people like Debo Adegbile through, and they couldn’t get him through — and in the area of civil rights, so crucial to Obama’s legacy.
Obama called the defeat “a travesty,” but the White House seemed oblivious to the fact that they were putting Democratic senators in red states in a squeeze between the Fraternal Order of Police and civil rights groups. Adegbile had worked on an N.A.A.C.P. legal team that filed a Supreme Court brief in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a writer and former Black Panther convicted in the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal called himself a political prisoner and turned into such an international cause célèbre that a Paris suburb named a street for him.
If Obama was determined to choose Adegbile, his team needed to sell him adeptly and promptly. But Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said there were still “open wounds” about Faulkner in his state, and by the time Casey and six other Democrats began to run away, it was too late.
It also didn’t help Obama’s swag that Reid and Nancy Pelosi peremptorily declared the president’s trade agenda D.O.A. for this session, showing that he doesn’t have the juice to override them on a key part of his economic plan. If the president doesn’t get it together, he’s headed for a big, bad midterm “thumpin’ ” in the memorable word of W., who experienced one six years into his reign.
It’s tricky for Democrats: Obama is unpopular, so they want to distance themselves from him in the tough races in red states. But the more they run away from him, the weaker he looks and the more unpopular he gets. (Gallup has his approval rating dropping to 41 percent, a danger zone for Democrats running for re-election.)
If the Republicans win the Senate, they’ll get in and find out they can’t pass legislation either. Then they’ll look bad just in time to help make a Democratic presidential candidate look good.
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KIEV/SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) - Shots were fired in Crimea to warn off an unarmed international team of monitors and at a Ukrainian observation plane, as the standoff between occupying Russian forces and besieged Ukrainian troops intensified.
Russia's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula, which began 10 days ago, has so far been bloodless, but its forces have become increasingly aggressive towards Ukrainian troops, who are trapped in bases and have offered no resistance.
President Vladimir Putin declared a week ago that Russia had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian citizens, and his parliament has voted to change the law to make it easier to annex territory inhabited by Russian speakers.
Tempers have grown hotter in the last two days, since the region's pro-Moscow leadership declared it part of Russia and announced a March 16 referendum to confirm it.
The worst face-off with Moscow since the Cold War has left the West scrambling for a response. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to Russia's foreign minister for the fourth day in a row, told Sergei Lavrov that annexing Crimea "would close any available space for diplomacy," a U.S. official said.
President Barack Obama spoke by phone to the leaders of France, Britain and Italy and three ex-Soviet Baltic states that have joined NATO. He assured Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which have their own ethnic Russian populations, that the Western military alliance would protect them if necessary.
A spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said no one was hurt when shots were fired to turn back its mission of more than 40 unarmed observers, who have been invited by Kiev but lack permission from Crimea's pro-Russian authorities to cross the isthmus to the peninsula.
They had been turned back twice before, but this was the first time shots were fired.
Ukraine's border guards said an unarmed observation plane took rifle fire flying 1,000 meters over the regional border.
Hackers targeted Kiev's security council with a denial of service attack designed to cripple itscomputers, the council said. The national news agency was also hit. Russia used similar cyber tactics during its war against Georgia in 2008.
Crimea's pro-Moscow authorities have ordered all remaining Ukrainian troop detachments in the province to disarm and surrender, but at several locations they have refused to yield.
Moscow denies that the Russian-speaking troops in Crimea are under its command, an assertion Washington dismisses as "Putin's fiction". Although they wear no insignia, the troops drive vehicles with Russian military plates.
A Reuters reporting team filmed a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops in about 50 troop trucks, accompanied by armored vehicles and ambulances, which pulled into a military base north of Simferopol in broad daylight on Saturday.
"SITUATION HAS CHANGED"
The military standoff has remained bloodless, but troops on both sides spoke of increased agitation.
"The situation is changed. Tensions are much higher now. You have to go. You can't film here," said a Russian soldier carrying a heavy machinegun, his face covered except for his eyes, at a Ukrainian navy base in Novoozernoye.
About 100 armed Russians are keeping watch over the Ukrainians at the base, where a Russian ship has been scuttled at the harbor's entrance to keep the Ukrainians from sailing out with three ships of their navy.
"Things are difficult and the atmosphere has got worse. The Russians threaten us when we go and get food supplies and point their guns at us," said Vadim Filipenko, the Ukrainian deputy commander at the base.
A source in Ukraine's defense ministry said it was mobilizing some of its military hardware for a planned exercise, Interfax news agency reported. Ukraine's military, with barely 130,000 troops, would be no match for Russia's. So far Kiev has held back from any action that might provoke a response.
Overnight, Russian troops drove a truck into a missile defense post in Sevastopol, the home of both their Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian navy, and took control of it. A Reuters reporting team at the scene said no one was hurt.
Ukraine's border service said Russian troops had also seized a border guard outpost in the east of the peninsula overnight, kicking the Ukrainian officers and their families out of their apartments in the middle of the night.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Saturday Poland had evacuated its consulate in Sevastopol due to "continuing disturbances by Russian forces".
The United States has announced sanctions against individuals it accuses of interfering with Ukrainian territorial integrity, although it has yet to publish the list. Washington has threatened wider action to isolate the Russian economy.
The European Union is also considering sanctions, but has so far been more cautious. Any action would be much harder to organize for a 28-nation bloc that takes decisions unanimously, many of whose members depend on Russian natural gas.
Ukraine's ambassador to Russia held a "frank" meeting with a deputy Russian foreign minister, Moscow said, giving no details.
Pro-Moscow Crimea leader Sergei Aksyonov said the referendum on union with Russia - due in a week - would not be stopped. It had been called so quickly to avert "provocation", he said.
"MANY HOTHEADS"
"There are many hotheads who are trying to create a destabilized situation in the autonomous republic of Crimea, and because the life and safety of our citizens is the most valuable thing, we have decided to curtail the duration of the referendum and hold it as soon as possible," he told Russian television.
Aksyonov, whose openly separatist Russian Unity party received just four percent of the vote in Crimea's last parliamentary election, declared himself provincial leader 10 days ago after armed Russians seized the parliament building.
Crimean opposition parliamentarians say most lawmakers were barred from the besieged building, both for the vote that installed Aksyonov and another a week later that declared Crimea part of Russia, and the results were falsified. Both votes took place behind closed doors.
Crimea has a narrow ethnic Russian majority, but it is far from clear that most residents want to be ruled from Moscow. When last asked in 1991, they voted narrowly for independence along with the rest of Ukraine. Western countries dismiss the upcoming referendum as illegal and likely to be falsified.
Many in the region do feel deep hostility to Kiev, and since Aksyonov took power supporters of union with Moscow have controlled the streets, waving Russian flags and chanting "Rossiya! Rossiya!"
Nevertheless, many still quietly speak of their alarm at the Russian takeover: "With all these soldiers here, it is like we are living in a zoo," said Tatyana, 41, an ethnic Russian. "Everyone fully understands this is an occupation."
The region's 2 million population includes more than 250,000 indigenous Tatars, who have returned only since the 1980s after being deported en masse to distant Uzbekistan by Stalin. They are fiercely opposed to Russian annexation.
The referendum is "completely illegitimate. It has no legal basis", Crimean Tatar leader Refat Chubarev told Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
As tempers have hardened, journalists have been beaten by hostile pro-Russian crowds. The Associated Press said armed men had confiscated TV equipment from one of its crews.
In addition to the Russian troops, the province is prowled by roving bands of "self-defense" forces and Cossacks in fur hats armed with whips, bused in from southern Russia.
In Crimea, Russian television and the provincial channel controlled by Aksyonov broadcast wildly exaggerated accounts of "fascists" in control of the streets in Kiev and of plans by Ukraine to ban the Russian language. Ukrainian television and the region's only independent station have been switched off.
Putin launched the operation to seize Crimea within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich's flight from the country. Yanukovich was toppled after three months of demonstrations against a decision to spurn a free trade deal with the European Union for closer ties with Russia.
(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel in Simferopol, Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Roche)
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MOSCOW — The complex ethnic, historical, cultural, economic and religious links between Russia and Ukraine were on display Friday in Moscow during the 200th birthday celebrations for Taras Shevchenko, who composed poetry in Ukrainian and prose in Russian.
Participants from both nations took part including Ukraine's ambassador to Moscow, Volodymyr Yelchenko.
“Unfortunately today’s ceremony is happening on the backdrop of events that I will not comment on, out of respect for our mutual holiday,” he said.
It is a crisis of two nations deeply entwined. Experts estimate there are between three- to five-million Ukrainians in Russia — many of them undocumented migrant workers who send their earnings back to Ukraine. Russian and Ukraine did $45 billion of trade in 2012.
Beyond the literature of Shevchenko, Pavel Felgenhauer, a defense analyst, identifies a mixed language called Surzhik, which translate into "mixed-grain bread," that common in Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and neighboring Russian areas.
“It’s not classical Ukrainian literature, and it’s not Russian," he said. "It’s a kind of non-literary talking language, which everyone finds disgusting and funny.”
Living in Moscow for 34 years, Ukrainian-Russian Vera Onipko grew up in Ukraine’s deep east near Lugansk, a hotbed of Surzhik speakers.
“At school we had classes in Russian language and literature, Ukrainian language and literature. But for math, algebra, or geometry, teachers spoke in the mixed-language,” recalled Onipko.
The nations’ churches have ancient ties dating back to the eighth century Kievan-Rus — the proto-nation for both Russia and Ukraine. Church leaders have had a public exchange of letters decrying violence and promoting brotherhood.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, these brotherly relations could ultimately prevent armed conflict.
“Ukrainian and Russian servicemen will not stand on opposite sides of the barricades. They will stand on the same side,” he said.
But the question is — if tensions continue to rise, will Putin's assessment hold?
Participants from both nations took part including Ukraine's ambassador to Moscow, Volodymyr Yelchenko.
“Unfortunately today’s ceremony is happening on the backdrop of events that I will not comment on, out of respect for our mutual holiday,” he said.
It is a crisis of two nations deeply entwined. Experts estimate there are between three- to five-million Ukrainians in Russia — many of them undocumented migrant workers who send their earnings back to Ukraine. Russian and Ukraine did $45 billion of trade in 2012.
Beyond the literature of Shevchenko, Pavel Felgenhauer, a defense analyst, identifies a mixed language called Surzhik, which translate into "mixed-grain bread," that common in Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and neighboring Russian areas.
“It’s not classical Ukrainian literature, and it’s not Russian," he said. "It’s a kind of non-literary talking language, which everyone finds disgusting and funny.”
Living in Moscow for 34 years, Ukrainian-Russian Vera Onipko grew up in Ukraine’s deep east near Lugansk, a hotbed of Surzhik speakers.
“At school we had classes in Russian language and literature, Ukrainian language and literature. But for math, algebra, or geometry, teachers spoke in the mixed-language,” recalled Onipko.
The nations’ churches have ancient ties dating back to the eighth century Kievan-Rus — the proto-nation for both Russia and Ukraine. Church leaders have had a public exchange of letters decrying violence and promoting brotherhood.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, these brotherly relations could ultimately prevent armed conflict.
“Ukrainian and Russian servicemen will not stand on opposite sides of the barricades. They will stand on the same side,” he said.
But the question is — if tensions continue to rise, will Putin's assessment hold?
U.S. President Barack Obama has made phone calls to European heads of state regarding Ukraine, while on his vacation in the U.S. state of Florida.
The White House says Mr. Obama spoke individually with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Saturday and held a conference call with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. No details about the discussions were immediately available.
The White House has promised to issue details about the calls later in the day.
On Friday, the Pentagon estimated there are now about 20,000 Russian troops in Ukraine.
Rear Admiral John Kirby says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Ukrainian Defense Minister Ihor Tenyuh on Friday and discussed humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The State Department also confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry spoke Friday over the phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, as the Obama administration moved to impose sanctions on Russia.
The White House said President Obama told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Thursday that Moscow's actions in Ukraine violate that country's sovereignty.
It was the first known direct contact between the leaders since Russian military personnel appeared in the Ukrainian territory last Saturday.
A statement Thursday said Mr. Obama proposed several diplomatic solutions to the standoff, which it said address "the interests of Russia, the people of Ukraine and the international community."
Mr. Obama has signed an executive order authorizing sanctions on those found to have stolen assets of the Ukrainian people or to have violated Ukraine's territorial integrity. The order blocks the transfer from the United States of assets belonging to anyone found to have undermined democratic institutions in Ukraine. It includes visa restrictions, but does not name targeted individuals.
The president said a March 16 referendum decreed by pro-Russian Crimean lawmakers on the future of the peninsula violates international law and Ukraine's constitution. He said any discussion about Ukraine's future "must include the legitimate government of Ukraine."
The White House says Mr. Obama spoke individually with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Saturday and held a conference call with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. No details about the discussions were immediately available.
The White House has promised to issue details about the calls later in the day.
On Friday, the Pentagon estimated there are now about 20,000 Russian troops in Ukraine.
Rear Admiral John Kirby says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Ukrainian Defense Minister Ihor Tenyuh on Friday and discussed humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The State Department also confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry spoke Friday over the phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, as the Obama administration moved to impose sanctions on Russia.
The White House said President Obama told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Thursday that Moscow's actions in Ukraine violate that country's sovereignty.
It was the first known direct contact between the leaders since Russian military personnel appeared in the Ukrainian territory last Saturday.
A statement Thursday said Mr. Obama proposed several diplomatic solutions to the standoff, which it said address "the interests of Russia, the people of Ukraine and the international community."
Mr. Obama has signed an executive order authorizing sanctions on those found to have stolen assets of the Ukrainian people or to have violated Ukraine's territorial integrity. The order blocks the transfer from the United States of assets belonging to anyone found to have undermined democratic institutions in Ukraine. It includes visa restrictions, but does not name targeted individuals.
The president said a March 16 referendum decreed by pro-Russian Crimean lawmakers on the future of the peninsula violates international law and Ukraine's constitution. He said any discussion about Ukraine's future "must include the legitimate government of Ukraine."
By Alissa de Carbonnel
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Sun Mar 9, 2014 6:15am EDT
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) - Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.
Russian forces' seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia.
The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich's flight from the country last month. Yanukovich was toppled after three months of demonstrations against a decision to spurn a free trade deal with the European Union for closer ties with Russia.
In the latest armed action, Russians took over a Ukrainian border post on the western edge of Crimea at around 6 a.m. (0400) GMT, trapping about 30 personnel inside, a border guard spokesman said.
The spokesman, Oleh Slobodyan, said Russian forces now controlled 11 border guard posts across Crimea, a former Russian territory that is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and has an ethnic Russian majority.
President Vladimir Putin declared a week ago that Russia had the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian citizens, and his parliament has voted to change the law to make it easier to annex territory inhabited by Russian speakers.
The worst face-off with Moscow since the Cold War has left the West scrambling for a response, especially since the region's pro-Russia leadership declared Crimea part of Russia last week and announced a March 16 referendum to confirm it.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to Russia's foreign minister for the fourth day in a row, told Sergei Lavrov on Saturday that Russia should exercise restraint.
"He made clear that continued military escalation and provocation in Crimea or elsewhere in Ukraine, along with steps to annex Crimea to Russia, would close any available space for diplomacy, and he urged utmost restraint," a U.S. official said.
President Barack Obama spoke by phone on Saturday to the leaders of France, Britain and Italy and three ex-Soviet Baltic states that have joined NATO. He assured Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which have their own ethnic Russian populations, that the Western military alliance would protect them if necessary.
SHOTS FIRED
A spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said military monitors from the pan-Europe watchdog had on Saturday been prevented for the third time in as many days from entering Crimea.
Shots were fired on Saturday to turn back the mission of more than 40 unarmed observers, who have been invited by Kiev but lack permission from Crimea's pro-Russian authorities to cross the isthmus to the peninsula. No one was hurt.
Crimea's pro-Moscow authorities have ordered all remaining Ukrainian troop detachments in the province to disarm and surrender, but at several locations they have refused to yield.
Moscow denies that the Russian-speaking troops in Crimea are under its command, an assertion Washington dismisses as "Putin's fiction". Although they wear no insignia, the troops drive vehicles with Russian military plates.
A Reuters reporting team filmed a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops in about 50 trucks, accompanied by armored vehicles and ambulances, which pulled into a military base north of Simferopol in broad daylight on Saturday.
The military standoff has remained bloodless, but troops on both sides spoke of increased agitation.
"The situation is changed. Tensions are much higher now. You have to go. You can't film here," said a Russian soldier carrying a heavy machine gun, his face covered except for his eyes, at a Ukrainian navy base in Novoozernoye.
A source in Ukraine's defense ministry said it was mobilizing some of its military hardware for a planned exercise, Interfax news agency reported. Ukraine's military, with barely 130,000 troops, would be no match for Russia's. So far Kiev has held back from any action that might provoke a response.
SANCTIONS
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Saturday Poland had evacuated its consulate in Sevastopol due to "continuing disturbances by Russian forces".
The United States has announced sanctions against individuals it accuses of interfering with Ukrainian territorial integrity, although it has yet to publish the list. Washington has threatened wider action to isolate the Russian economy.
The European Union is also considering sanctions, but has so far been more cautious. Any action would be much harder to organize for a 28-nation bloc that takes decisions unanimously and many of whose members depend on Russian natural gas.
Pro-Moscow Crimea leader Sergei Aksyonov said the referendum on union with Russia - due in a week - would not be stopped. It had been called so quickly to avert "provocation", he said.
It is far from clear whether most of the 2 million Crimea residents want to be ruled by Moscow. When last asked in 1991, they voted narrowly for independence along with the rest of Ukraine.
Western countries dismiss the planned referendum as illegal and likely to be falsified.
(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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Attitudes like the one voiced by Kerry have raised anti-American sentiment all over South America. With a little background, it's easy to see why Venezuela and Argentina have turned to Iran for friendship and mutual support.
Twenty-five people died in Kiev last night.
Before it started, when the day was still bright and my main thoughts were about dealing with my feverish four-year-old twins over half-term, I sent a message to a friend who also writes about Russia (I’d put the twins in front of a cartoon).
‘Just had an odd thought,’ was the gist of what I wrote (it was in a social media shorthand). ‘But what if all the stuff the Kremlin has been doing the last few months – destroying the relatively free RIA Novosti, taking TV Rain off the airwaves, pressuring radio Ekho Moskvy, ramping up the anti-Americanism and traitor-hysteria – is not just a case of a general “turning the screws”, not a reaction to social change, but actually active preparation for a huge operation in Ukraine. They want their informational bases covered. They’re planning something.’
‘Ummm. Maybe,’ my friend wrote.
‘I’m not one for conspiracies,’ I thought later, as I sat in the doctor’s waiting-room (one of the twins might have scarlet fever). Since the latest crisis in Ukraine began there have been myriads: it’s all part of a US plot to destabilise a Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis; it’s Masons based at the Lviv Catholic University; it’s Putin demanding a blood oath from Yanukovich to kill protesters; it’s Polish-Swedish revenge for their defeat by Peter the Great. ‘Do people believe in conspiracy theories out of a sense of helplessness?’ I wondered. ‘Like astrology? I hope my friend doesn’t think I’m one of them.’
And then the attack on Maidan began, and the killing.
‘What does Yanukovich think he’s doing?’ I thought. Before this he had a way out, was negotiating down, could probably have toddled off into the distance a very rich man. Instead he was cutting off all his escape routes. The operation looked planned to make sure there were deaths. Deaths could only mean the crisis was reignited. Of course Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk were responding: rebels seizing the government buildings. Not one European leader could get through on Yanukovich’s phone. The rumour was they hadn’t been able to all day. He must have known this was going to happen. Or was he even in charge? This all looked like the methods of Viktor Medvedchuk, the Kremlin man in the Presidential Administration. And didn’t Putin pledge Yanukovich another 2 billion just the other day?
And then more dots were joining up. In Kharkiv the mayor (said to be a former gangster who makes Yanukovich look small-time) and governor had announced the formation of a ‘Ukrainian front’: ‘Seventy years after [the Second World War] the Ukrainian front has appeared in Ukraine again and it will clear the Ukrainian earth of fascist evil spirits,’ the governor said, chiming with Russian state TV. Meanwhile Surkov had been spotted in Crimea. Was he readying the locals for an independence push? The Night Wolves are back in Sevastopol, ready to ‘defend’ the city.
All this is just what Putin wants. A national stand-off in Ukraine which redraws the lines between ‘Holy Russia’ and ‘Fascist-Homosexual West’. Putin’s press secretary has already called the violence an ‘attempted coup’. Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Russian Communists, has called on the south and east to form resistance groups. It could be that it’s not so much Ukraine joining the Eurasian Union that counts, it’s the journey towards it, keeping the Putin story moving onwards (it doesn’t really matter where to, it just has to keep on moving).
So was all this being prepared over the last months?
‘What do you do when one of the conspiracies might be right?’ I thought. It was late at night, the twins were up again with temperatures.
This morning the conspiracies are everywhere again. It’s Ukrainian oligarchs trying to pull Russia into a war in Ukraine! It’s Victoria Nuland! It’s Aries! Saturn! The Moon!
But now I’m joining in with them.
There are 25 dead. I’m on the phone with relatives and friends in Kiev.
Astrology, conspiracy theories: can they also be a form of lamentation, a way to deal with grief and start to mourn the dead?
Read the whole story
· · ·
Among the Conspiracy Theorists
London Review of Books (subscription) (blog) 'But what if all the stuff the Kremlin has been doing the last few months – destroying the relatively free RIA Novosti, taking TV Rain off the airwaves, pressuring radio Ekho Moskvy, ramping up theanti-Americanism and traitor-hysteria – is not just a ... and more » |
Russia's Best Olympic Event: Downhill Anti-Americanism
American Thinker An amazing sequence of shockingly sordid anti-American behavior from the Russians has now permanently tarnished their second attempt to host an Olympic Games. Blessed with an absence of feared terrorist events, the Russians had a golden opportunity... |
Venezuela Crackdown Meets Silence in Latin America
Wall Street Journal Enrique Krauze, Mexico's leading historian, said one reason for the tepid response from governments was the region's enduring romance with leftist revolution, in its Cuban and Venezuelan variants, as well as Latin America's lingering anti-Americanism. |
Looking Over My Shoulder: An American's Observations During the Venezuelan ...
Diplomatic Courier Years ago, Maduro was sent to Cuba for two years of training; brainwashed by the Castro regime on anti-Americanism and centralized socialism. That is essentially his resume. Hours after the initial protests of February 12th, the government issued an ... and more » |
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Washington Post |
EDITORIAL: Venezuela at the edge
Washington Times Socialism's new man in the palace pledged to continue the Chavista revolution, a mixture of the working-class populism and the anti-Americanism that always plays well south of the border. When there's neither bread nor toilet paper, why not blame the ... Looking Over My Shoulder: An American's Observations During the Venezuelan ...Diplomatic Courier all 788 news articles » |
Washington Post |
McFaul leaves Moscow — and two dramatic years in relations between US and ...
Washington Post The Russian news media covered him obsessively during his two years here. Liberal media found him accessible and quotable. Their government-oriented counterparts found him a convenient target for an official policy of anti-Americanism. In this picture... and more » |
Venezuelans' fight for freedom important to US
Boston Herald For example, fueled by communist Cuban ideology, Venezuela is still the source of virulent anti-Americanism in Latin America. Influenced by Caracas, Latin American capitals have veered left politically and are less friendly to Washington in recent years. and more » |
Today's Zaman |
McFaul leaves Moscow and two dramatic years in relations between US and ...
Today's Zaman Their government-oriented counterparts found him a convenient target for an official policy of anti-Americanism. Not surprisingly, the coverage this week ranged from straightforward speculation on McFaul's successor and the unlikelihood of a shift in ... and more » |
Putin Engages in Test of Will Over Ukraine
New York Times Sergei Utkin, the head of the Department of Strategic Assessment, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the relentless anti-Americanism on state media was in the past dismissed as crude propaganda that served a transparent political ... |
NDTV |
Vladimir Putin engages in test of will over Ukraine
NDTV Sergei Utkin, the head of the Department of Strategic Assessment, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the relentless anti-Americanism on state media was in the past dismissed as crude propaganda that served a transparent political ... and more » |
