» Will Russia invade Ukraine? - BBC News
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BBC News Will Russia invade Ukraine? BBC News Could Russia intervene militarily in Crimea to safeguard its strategic interests? Or, to put the question a different way, has Russia already intervened? Nobody yet knows the identities of th...
28/02/14 11:45 from Google News
BBC News Will Russia invade Ukraine? BBC News Could Russia intervene militarily in Crimea to safeguard its strategic interests? Or, to put the question a different way, has Russia already intervened? Nobody yet knows the identities of th...
» Ukraine says Russian troops take up positions near airports, base - CBC.ca
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Ukraine says Russian troops take up positions near airports, base CBC.ca Ukraine accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" on Friday, saying Russian troops have taken up positions around a coast guard base and two ...
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Ukraine says Russian troops take up positions near airports, base CBC.ca Ukraine accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" on Friday, saying Russian troops have taken up positions around a coast guard base and two ...
» Ukraine accuses Russian troops of blocking off airports - CBS News
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Ukraine accuses Russian troops of blocking off airports CBS News SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A top Ukrainian security official said Friday that two airports in Crimea are under Ukrainian control despite attempts by gunmen to "seize"...
28/02/14 11:44 from Google News
Ukraine accuses Russian troops of blocking off airports CBS News SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A top Ukrainian security official said Friday that two airports in Crimea are under Ukrainian control despite attempts by gunmen to "seize"...
» UPDATE 1-Ukraine asks UN Security Council for emergency meeting on crisis - Reuters UK
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UPDATE 1-Ukraine asks UN Security Council for emergency meeting on crisis Reuters UK UNITED NATIONS/KIEV Feb 28 (Reuters) - Ukraine has sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council asking for an emergency session to discuss the escalating ...
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UPDATE 1-Ukraine asks UN Security Council for emergency meeting on crisis Reuters UK UNITED NATIONS/KIEV Feb 28 (Reuters) - Ukraine has sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council asking for an emergency session to discuss the escalating ...
» Defiant Yanukovych resurfaces in Russia as gunmen take control of airports in ... - Prague Post
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Defiant Yanukovych resurfaces in Russia as gunmen take control of airports in ... Prague Post The ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has resurfaced in Russia and branded as “chaos and catastrophe” the takeover in Kiev by a new ...
28/02/14 11:43 from Google News
Defiant Yanukovych resurfaces in Russia as gunmen take control of airports in ... Prague Post The ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has resurfaced in Russia and branded as “chaos and catastrophe” the takeover in Kiev by a new ...
» Defiant Yanukovych Urges Russia Restraint in Crimea - Bloomberg
28/02/14 11:43 from Google News
Defiant Yanukovych Urges Russia Restraint in Crimea Bloomberg A poster of President Viktor Yanukovych on a tent set by protesters at Kiev's... Read More. A poster of President Viktor Yanukovych on a tent set by protesters at Kiev'...
28/02/14 11:43 from Google News
Defiant Yanukovych Urges Russia Restraint in Crimea Bloomberg A poster of President Viktor Yanukovych on a tent set by protesters at Kiev's... Read More. A poster of President Viktor Yanukovych on a tent set by protesters at Kiev'...
» Ukraine crisis live: Russia should act, says ousted president - Telegraph.co.uk
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Ukraine crisis live: Russia should act, says ousted president Telegraph.co.uk Sebastapol airport under Russian military blockade. Acting president calls emergency Security Council meeting. Keep out of Ukraine, US tells Russia Ukraine app...
28/02/14 11:43 from Google News
Ukraine crisis live: Russia should act, says ousted president Telegraph.co.uk Sebastapol airport under Russian military blockade. Acting president calls emergency Security Council meeting. Keep out of Ukraine, US tells Russia Ukraine app...
» US, Nato warn Russia to avoid 'miscalculation' over Crimea - Business Recorder
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US, Nato warn Russia to avoid 'miscalculation' over Crimea Business Recorder US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday joined Nato in warning Russia not to take any action that could lead to "miscalculation" amid ris...
28/02/14 11:08 from Google News
US, Nato warn Russia to avoid 'miscalculation' over Crimea Business Recorder US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday joined Nato in warning Russia not to take any action that could lead to "miscalculation" amid ris...
28 February 2014 Last updated at 09:42 ET By Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent
Recent developments look much like the preliminary to the Russian assault on Georgia in 2008
Nobody yet knows who the armed men at Simferopol airport are
Recent developments look much like the preliminary to the Russian assault on Georgia in 2008
Could Russia intervene militarily in Crimea to safeguard its strategic interests? Or, to put the question a different way, has Russia already intervened?
Nobody yet knows the identities of the armed men who seized control of Simferopol airport.
But their equipment, their vehicles and their behaviour all signal that this is a trained military unit, not a rag-tag group of pro-Russian loyalists.
"These men look like a formed and organised body of troops. They appear to be disciplined, confident and uniformly dressed and equipped," says Brigadier Ben Barry, a land warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Continue reading the main story
Crimea
- Autonomous republic within Ukraine
- Transferred from Russia in 1954
- Ethnic Russians - 58.5%
- Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%
- Crimean Tatars - 12.1%
Source: Ukraine census 2001
"Irregular militia may obtain bits of official kit but they tend to look like a military jumble sale."
All we know is that what looks to be a military unit has secured the airport in Simferopol, the Crimean regional capital.
This comes against a background of deepening tensions, with the Russians working through a predictable play-book of threats and menaces aimed at the new interim authorities in Ukraine.
Combat aircraft in areas bordering Ukraine are on alert. Snap military exercises have been held to demonstrate the readiness of Russian forces.
Misleading comparisons
There have been economic threats too, for example to increase customs duties at the two countries' border along with widespread rhetoric warning of the threats to Russian minorities, orthodox religious shrines and so on.
Nobody yet knows who the armed men at Simferopol airport are
So far, it looks much like the preliminaries to the Russian assault on Georgia back in 2008.
Then, of course, the Georgian military did the Russians the favour of moving first into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia sparking a furious Russian response.
But comparisons can be misleading.
Georgia was a small country that had deeply irritated Moscow and one that could do little to respond against Russia's overwhelming military might.
Many experts believe a similar full-scale Russian intervention of Ukraine is unlikely.
Given the size of Ukraine and the divisions within its population, it would simply saddle Russia with involvement in what might rapidly become a bitter civil war.
Russian pressure at the moment serves a different goal.
Ukraine is heading towards bankruptcy. It needs outside funding. Moscow knows that Western financial institutions must play some kind of role.
Its concern is to underline in as clear terms as possible that any future Ukrainian government should tilt as much towards Moscow as it does to the EU.
Russia's bottom line is that Kiev should resist any temptation to draw towards Nato.
Crimea though is another matter. For a start the Russian military does not need to invade - it is already there, leasing facilities from the Ukrainian authorities.
The bulk of Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in Crimea with its headquarters in Sevastopol.
Russian naval personnel come and go in Sevastopol as if it were a Russian city. The navy dominates the town.
While largely made up of naval personnel, the Black Sea Fleet also has a contingent of marines and there have been a series of reports suggesting that Russian forces in and around Sevastopol have been bolstered in recent days.
Crimea has a very large pro-Russian population, who are probably in the majority.
Many Russian naval personnel have retired there - and it is distanced physically and politically from Kiev.
Russian pressure in Crimea again serves Moscow's wider purpose of reminding Ukraine's new rulers that Moscow's concerns must be considered in any future economic and diplomatic arrangements.
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· · · · · · ·
Russian flags outside the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol. Photograph: David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters
Days after the end of Vladimir Putin's Sochi Olympics, the borders of Europe are shifting. Or, more accurately, military forces suspected of acting on Moscow's orders are creating a new cartographic reality on the ground.
Overnight, alleged undercover Russian special forces seized control of Simferopol airport, in the administrative capital of Crimea. The move comes less than 24 hours after a similar squad of shadowy, well-armed, Russian-speaking gunmen seized Simferopol's parliament building and administrative complex. If anyone was in doubt what this meant, the gunmen left a clue. They raised a Russian flag above the parliament building.
Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, described the operations in Crimea in apocalyptic terms. What was unfolding in the south was "an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms", he posted on Facebook. That's certainly how it seems.
Moscow's military moves so far resemble a classically executed coup: seize control of strategic infrastructure, seal the borders between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, invoke the need to protect the peninsula's ethnic Russian majority. The Kremlin's favourite news website, Lifenews.ru, was on hand to record the historic moment. Its journalists were allowed to video Russian forces patrolling ostentatiously outside Simferopol airport.
Wearing khaki uniforms – they had removed their insignia – and carrying Kalashnikovs, the soldiers seemed relaxed and in control. Other journalists filming from the road captured Russian helicopters flying into Crimea from the east. They passed truckloads of Russian reinforcements arriving from Sevastopol, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in this very Crimean coup. But Putin's playbook in the coming days and months is easy to predict. On Thursday, the Crimean parliament announced it would hold a referendum on the peninsula's future status on 25 May. That is the same day Ukraine goes to the polls in fresh presidential elections.
The referendum can have only one outcome: a vote to secede from Ukraine. After that, Crimea can go one of two ways. It could formally join the Russian Federation. Or, more probably, it might become a sort of giant version of South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Georgia's two Russian-occupied breakaway republics – a Kremlin-controlled puppet exclave, with its own local administration, "protected" by Russian troops and naval frigates. Either way, this amounts to Moscow's annexation of Crimea, de facto or de jure.
From Putin's perspective, a coup would be payback for what he regards as the western-backed takeover of Kiev by opposition forces – or fascists, as the Kremlin media calls them. The Kremlin argument runs something like this: if armed gangs can seize power in the Ukrainian capital, storming government buildings, why can't pro-Russian forces do the same thing in Crimea? (It is another high-stakes manifestation of the Kremlin's favourite doctrine, "whataboutism". If Kosovo, then Crimea etc.)
There are, of course, signal differences. Despite the presence of radical Ukrainian nationalists, the vast majority of opposition demonstrators in Kiev were ordinary citizens. They were fed up with the corruption and misrule of President Viktor Yanukovych and his clique. It was a bottom-up revolution. The protesters were armed with little more than homemade shields, rubbish helmets and molotov cocktails.
In Crimea, by contrast, the shadowy Russian troops are equipped with the latest gear – they are professionals, not amateur homegrown revolutionaries. Ukrainian officials point to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. And the warp-speed tempo of events in Crimea is being dictated from the top, not the bottom – from Moscow, rather than the street.
The choreography has been impressive. Within hours of the airport seizure, Russian MPs proposed a bill in the state Duma simplifying procedures for getting Russian passports to Ukrainians. The goal, the MPs said, was to protect a "brotherly nation". Russia's most important opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, meanwhile, has been placed under house arrest for two months and denied access to the internet. The Kremlin, that most risk-averse of entities, has everything covered.
It only remains to be seen what role Yanukovych will play in this fast-moving drama. Despite having fled the country, he insists that he is still Ukraine's legitimate president. He is giving a press conference on Friday in the southern Russian town of Rostov-on-Don, close to the Ukrainian border.
This may seem like a bizarre provincial venue. But there is method here too: Russia refuses to recognise Kiev's new pro-western interim government as a legitimate partner. It is likely to continue to treat Yanukovych – whose regime is accused of plundering $70bn (£42bn) from Ukraine's treasury – as the head of a government-in-exile. It may even seek to return him to Crimea to continue his "executive" functions. Given Yanukovych's love of bling, Crimea's sumptuous Livadia Palace – where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met to discuss Europe's 1945 postwar carve-up – might serve as his new HQ.
Spare a thought, meanwhile, for Crimea's Tartars. They are the peninsula's original Turkic-speaking Muslim inhabitants. Well-educated and politically organised, they now number 300,000, 15% of Crimea's population. They want to remain part of Ukraine. They support Kiev's new pro-EU leadership.
They also have their own awful folk memories of Russian colonisation and exile: in 1944, Stalin deported the Tartars and other smaller groups to central Asia. They mostly came home after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Understandably, they may now fear being cast once again in the role of fifth columnists. So far the Kremlin has said nothing about their rights.
All of this presents the west with one of its biggest crises since the cold war. Russia has mounted a major land grab of a neighbouring sovereign state. How will the west react?
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· · · · ·
В Крыму командующий Черноморским флотом Российской Федерации Александр Витко объявил о начале войны с Украиной. Такую информацию подтвердил народный депутат от "Батькивщины", бывший председатель Меджлиса крымско-татарского народа Мустафа Джемилев, сообщает НБН.
По его словам, в пятницу, 28 февраля, в Севастополе "командующий Черноморским флотом собрал всех генералов и сказал: "Мы начинаем войну с Украиной".
Кроме того, по информации депутата, утром без всякого разрешения границу Украины, пытаясь обойти пеленгаторы, пересекли 4 вертолета из Анапы. "Было предположение, что они доставили беглого Януковича, который должен был сделать какие-то заявления, но это догадки или предположения", – отметил он.
При этом он подчеркнул, что сейчас Украина России ничем противостоять не может, и украинцы стоят на пороге очень драматических событий. "Единственный выход тут, я думаю, чтоб у нас были силы ввести чрезвычайное положение, ввести наши войска и взять под контроль все государственные учреждения", - сказал Джемилев.
Он попросил об этом и.о. Президента Украины, наделенного полномочиями главнокомандующего Вооруженных сил, Александра Турчинова. "Я сейчас с Турчиновым говорил о том, что какие у нас есть воинские части, силы, все надо бросить в Крым. В других частях нам никакой угрозы пока нет, ввести ЧП и бросить под контроль. Но опять-таки есть опасение, что мы спровоцируем, что может у нас сил не хватит", – констатировал нардеп.
По его мнению, Россия не пойдет на полномасштабную войну, но "страна должна защищать свое достоинство, элементарные права своих граждан". "Мне постоянно звонят и говорят: если Украина не может что-то сделать, дайте нам хотя бы оружие", – рассказал экс-глава Меджлиса крымско-татарского народа.
При этом он отметил, что крымским татарам нет смысла стоять с автоматами и пистолетами против "вооруженной до зубов армии России" и это значит "пускать народ на смерть".
Как сообщал MIGnews.com.ua, секретарь СНБО Андрей Парубий не видит необходимости введения чрезвычайного положения в Крыму.
Как сообщал MIGnews.com.ua, секретарь СНБО Андрей Парубий не видит необходимости введения чрезвычайного положения в Крыму.
Armed men patrol outside the Simferopol International Airport in Ukraine's Crimea region on Friday, February 28. The gunmen, whom Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov called part of an "armed invasion" by Russian forces, appeared around the airport without identifying themselves. Crimea is an autonomous republic of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority. It's the last large bastion of opposition to Ukraine's new political leadership after President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster.
Russian troops block a road February 28 toward the military airport in Sevastopol, Ukraine, on the Black Sea coast. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is based at the port city of Sevastopol. Ukraine suspects Russia of fomenting tension in the autonomous region of Crimea, which might escalate into a bid for separation by its Russian majority.
Armed men stand guard in front of a building near the Simferopol airport on February 28. Simferopol is the regional capital of Ukraine's Crimea.
An armed man wearing no identifying military insignia patrols outside Simferopol International Airport on February 28.
Police stand guard outside the Crimea regional parliament building in Simferopol on Thursday, February 27. Armed men seized the regional government administration building and parliament in Crimea.
Police intervene as Russian supporters gather in front of the parliament building in Simferopol on February 27.
A man adds fuel to a fire at a barricade on Kiev's Independence Square on February 27. Dozens of people were killed last week during clashes between security forces and protesters.
Pro-Russia demonstrators wave Russian and Crimean flags in front of a local government building in Simferopol on February 27.
Barricades in front of a government building in Simferopol on February 27 hold a banner that reads: "Crimea Russia." There's a broad divide between those who support the pro-Western developments in Kiev and those who back Russia's continued influence in Crimea and across Ukraine.
</br>" border="0" height="360" id="articleGalleryPhoto0010" width="640">Protesters stand in front of a government building in Simferopol on February 27. Tensions have simmered in the Crimea region since the Ukraine president's ouster. 
Protesters in support of the president's ouster rally in Kiev's Independence Square, which has been the center of opposition, on Wednesday, February 26.
Security forces stand guard during clashes between opposing sides in front of Crimea's parliament building in Simferopol on February 26.
Pro-Russian demonstrators, right, clash with anti-Russian protesters in front of a government building in Simferopol on February 26.
A police officer gets pulled into a crowd of Crimean Tatars in Simferopol on February 26. The Tatars, an ethnic minority group deported during the Stalin era, is rallying in support of Ukraine's interim government.
A man places flowers at a barricade near Kiev's Independence Square on February 26.
A woman holds a photograph of a protester killed during the height of tensions on February 26 in Kiev.
Police guard a government building in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on February 26.
Protesters remove a fence that surrounds Ukraine's parliament in Kiev on February 26.
People sing the Ukrainian national anthem at Kiev's Independence Square on Monday, February 24.
Gas masks used by protesters sit next to a barricade in Independence Square on February 24.
A woman cries February 24 near a memorial for the people killed in Kiev.
People wave a large Ukrainian flag in Independence Square on Sunday, February 23.
Two pro-government supporters are made to pray February 23 in front of a shrine to dead anti-government protesters.
A man and his daughter lay flowers at a memorial for protesters killed in Independence Square.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko speaks at Independence Square on Saturday, February 22, hours after being released from prison. Tymoshenko, considered a hero of a 2004 revolution against Yanukovych, was released after 2½ years behind bars.
Tymoshenko is greeted by supporters shortly after being freed from prison in Kharkiv on February 22.
A protester guards the entrance to Yanukovych's abandoned residence outside Kiev on February 22.
Anti-government protesters guard the streets next to the presidential offices in Kiev on February 22.
Anti-government protesters drive a military vehicle in Independence Square on February 22. Many protesters said they wouldn't leave the square until Yanukovych resigned.
Ukrainian lawmakers argue during a session of Parliament on Friday, February 21.
Men in Kiev carry a casket containing the body of a protester killed in clashes with police.
Protesters cheer after news of an agreement between the opposing sides in Kiev on February 21.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Ukrainian authorities say they stopped Russian military forces seizing Crimean airports
- Defiant Viktor Yanukovych says he never ordered police to fire on protesters
- He speaks from Russia, making his first public appearance since his ouster as Ukraine's President
- Ukraine's interior minister has accused Russia of staging an "armed invasion" in Crimea
Simferopol, Ukraine (CNN) -- Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych gave a defiant performance Friday in Russia, as he insisted that he remained the country's legitimate elected leader and was not giving up yet.
"I intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine against those who, with fear and with terror, are attempting to replace the power," he said, speaking Russian, not Ukrainian.
"Nobody has overthrown me. I was compelled to leave Ukraine due to a direct threat to my life and my nearest and dearest."
Yanukovych, making his first public appearance since his ouster Saturday, said the newly appointed interim government was not legitimate and did not represent the majority of Ukraine's 45 million citizens.
Ukraine: Russian soldiers invaded airport
Tensions rise over Crimean peninsula
Tensions rising in Ukraine
He accused the interim authorities in Ukraine of propagating violence, saying that they were responsible for the bloodshed last week, in which dozens of protesters died in clashes with security forces, including snipers.
"I never gave any orders to shoot," he said, adding that he sought peace and that the security forces took up arms only when their own lives were at risk.
He said Western powers -- including the United States -- that helped broker an unimplemented deal between his government and the opposition for early elections also bore responsibility for the current situation.
Yanukovych, who spoke backed by Ukraine's blue-and-yellow flags before reporters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, about 700 miles south of Moscow, is wanted in Ukraine on charges connected to the deaths of demonstrators.
He insisted he had not fled Ukraine but had left after he was "shot at virtually from all sides" while traveling within the country after leaving Kiev.
And he said he was "ashamed" that he had not been able to maintain stability in his country.
"I want to apologize in front of everybody -- to the veterans, to the Ukrainian people -- that I did not have the strength to stop what is now taking place in the country from taking place," he said.
Next steps?
Yanukovych said he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone but had not met with him since his ouster.
He will not ask for Russian military support to return him to power, he said. But he said he was "surprised," knowing his character, that Putin had remained silent so far on the events unfolding in Russia's western neighbor.
Asked how he intended to fight for Ukraine's future from outside its borders, Yanukovych did not give a clear response but said he would return to Ukraine once his safety could be guaranteed.
But he will not participate in the presidential elections slated by the new government for May, he said.
Ukraine faces threats of secession
Gunmen seize Crimean parliament
"The elections of May 25 are illegal, and I will not take part in them," he said. "Elections must take place in accordance with the laws and constitution of Ukraine."
In the face of concerns that Ukraine's Russian-majority Crimean region may seek to secede, Yanukovych said the country must remain "united and undivided."
But at the same time, he said, "The citizens of Crimea do not want to be subordinate to nationalists and bandits."
Armed men at airports
Back in Ukraine, Andrii Parubii, the chief of national security and defense, said Ukrainian military and police forces had stopped Russian military forces from seizing both airports in the Crimean region.
The Russian military is on the outside of both airports, Parubii said in a televised news conference from the Ukrainian parliament.
Weapons were not used during the operation, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
A CNN team in Crimea reported seeing the Ukrainian flag flying on top of an air traffic control tower in Ukromnoye, near the main Simferopol airport.
Men in military uniforms -- their identity unclear -- have been seen patrolling the airport in the regional capital, as well as a military and civilian airbase in nearby Sevastopol, since the early hours of Friday.
Avakov earlier characterized their presence as an "armed invasion" by Russian forces.
The interior minister said the armed men seen at the Sevastopol airbase were troops from Russia's Black Sea fleet, stationed in the port city. They were camouflaged in uniforms without military insignia, he said.
Writing on his Facebook page, Avakov said Russia's actions were "an armed invasion and occupation," and "a direct military provocation on sovereign Ukrainian territory."
Operations at Simferopol airport have not been affected by the presence of the armed men, civil aviation authorities said.
"We are checking to make sure that no radicals come to Crimea from Kiev, from the Ukraine," said one man outside the airport, who didn't give his name.
"We don't want radicals, we don't want fascism, we don't want problems."
The men in uniform declined to say where they were from.
Other men outside Simferopol airport, dressed in black rather than military fatigues, said they belonged to the pro-Russia Unity Party and had come there on the orders of the new Crimean administration -- voted in Thursday after armed men seized the building.
Concerned about the latest developments, Ukraine's parliament passed a resolution Friday that demanded that Russia halt any activity that can be interpreted as an attack.
Russia did not react to Ukraine's latest allegations. But it continued snap military exercises on Ukraine's doorstep.
A house divided
Ever since Yanukovych was ousted Saturday, Ukraine has been showing a deepening schism. Those in the west generally support the country's interim government and its tilt toward the European Union. And many in the east prefer things as they were -- a Ukraine where its larger neighbor, Russia, casts a long shadow.
And nowhere is that feeling more intense than in Crimea. It's the last big bastion of opposition to the new political leadership. And Ukraine suspects Russia of fomenting tension in the autonomous region -- tension that might escalate into a bid for separation by its Russian majority.
In Crimea, government administration buildings in Simferopol remained under siege Friday, a day after armed men stormed in and planted Russia's flag atop the parliament building.
On Thursday, in a vote of no confidence, pro-Russian members of the Crimean parliament dismissed the government of Premier Anatolii Mohyliov, who was perceived as pro-Kiev.
The lawmakers also scheduled a referendum on greater autonomy for the region within Ukrainian territory.
The date of the referendum? May 25 -- the day Ukraine is scheduled to hold its presidential and local elections.
Amid the dizzying developments, Kiev has gone about its business of governing.
On Thursday, lawmakers approved opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister. He made clear that he believes the country's future rests in closer ties to Europe, not Russia.
Funds frozen
Yanukovych, who insists he is still the country's legitimate elected leader, stands accused by authorities in Ukraine of abuses including responsibility for civilian deaths.
Ukrainian media have also alleged corruption by Yanukovych, citing evidence found in the lavish residence he abandoned.
The Swiss government said Friday it was freezing assets in Switzerland that belong to Yanukovych and his entourage with immediate effect, to avoid any potential embezzlement of Ukrainian public funds and stop any money leaving Switzerland.
If the funds are found to have been amassed illegally, they can be returned to Ukraine after any criminal conviction of Yanukovych and his entourage, it said.
Austria's Foreign Ministry said it was also freezing the accounts of 18 Ukrainian nationals at the request of Ukraine's new authorities, with "the backdrop of possible human rights abuses during the bloody power struggle in Ukraine and because of possible corruption."
Russian maneuvers
As tensions simmered in Crimea, Russia alarmed some observers by announcing surprise military exercises Wednesday in its western and central areas.
Those continue Friday, Russia's Defense Ministry said, with more than 80 combat helicopters set to take to the skies in Russia's Western Military District, which borders Ukraine, for search and rescue drills.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Thursday against provocations by any party.
"I'm closely watching Russia's military exercises along the Ukrainian border," he said. "I expect Russia to be transparent about these activities, and I urge them not to take any steps that could be misinterpreted or lead to miscalculations during a very delicate time."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had told him the snap military exercises were prescheduled and unrelated to the events in Ukraine.
He also said Lavrov had reaffirmed to him a commitment that Russia would "respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine."
Kerry said that was a commitment that Russian President Vladimir Putin made to President Barack Obama when they spoke last week.
Crimea was handed to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954. Just over half its population is ethnic Russian, while about a quarter are Ukrainians and a little more than 10% are Crimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslim group oppressed under former Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
CNN's Victoria Eastwood and Diana Magnay reported from Simferopol, Ingrid Formanek from Kiev and Frederik Pleitgen from Moscow. Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. Journalist Azad Safarov and CNN's Alla Eshchenko and Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.
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В Госдуму России внесены законопроекты об упрощенном порядке получения российского гражданства украинскими гражданами и об упрощении процедуры присоединения к РФ части другого государства.
Группа депутатов от партии "Справедливая Россия" во главе с Сергеем Мироновым 28 февраля внесла в Госдуму законопроекты, существенно упрощающие возможную процедуру присоединения к России части иностранного государства.
Поправки к закону 2001 года "О порядке принятия в РФ и образовании в ее составе нового субъекта РФ" устанавливают упрощенный порядок присоединения к России части иностранного государства.
Согласно законопроекту, "при невозможности заключения международного договора в связи с отсутствием в иностранном государстве эффективной суверенной государственной власти, обязанной защищать своих граждан, соблюдать их права и свободы, принятие в РФ в качестве нового субъекта части иностранного государства может осуществляться по результатам референдума". Авторы поправок поясняют, что изменения в законе обусловлены событиями, происходящими на Украине.
В случае присоединения части иностранного государства к России, новый субъект РФ, согласно законопроекту, может получить статус республики, края, области, автономной области или автономного округа.
Депутаты также внесли в Госдуму проект закона об упрощенном порядке получения гражданами Украины гражданства РФ.
Если законопроект будет одобрен, любой гражданин Украины сможет подать заявление о приеме в гражданство РФ до 1 августа 2014 года. Решение по нему должно быть принято не позднее 2 месяцев со дня подачи. Кроме того, законопроект освобождает граждан Украины от уплаты государственный пошлины при приеме в гражданство.
Как утверждается в пояснительной записке, законопроект "направлен на поддержку братского народа Украины, особенно русскоговорящей его части, оказавшимся беззащитными перед лицом "коричневой" угрозы".
Совет Думы рассмотрит пакет законопроектов об упрощенном предоставлении украинцам российского гражданства 11 марта, сообщил глава профильного комитета Госдумы по конституционному законодательству и госстроительству Владимир Плигин.
По его словам, в комитет поступили законопроекты от Ивана Никитчука (КПРФ) и от члена комитета по делам СНГ Ильи Дроздова (ЛДПР), тексты которых "во многом совпадают, и они будут рассматриваться в пакете как альтернативные". "Эти два законопроекта точно будут вынесены на Совет думы 11 марта", - сказал Плигин.
Аналогичный документ внесли и депутаты "Справедливой России". По словам Плигина, "вне зависимости от юридических и других оценок данных предложений, их эмоциональную составляющую в принципе можно понять".
