Russia vs Ukraine: Crimean Crisis

[igor-mich]

The mailbox is opened in the West when he recognised Kosovo. And not what to bring down from a sick head on healthy.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://time.com/26755/kasparov-carter-looks-like-churchill-in-comparison-to-obama/

Ouch.

 

[Arjen]

The mailbox is opened in the West when he recognised Kosovo. And not what to bring down from a sick head on healthy.

For many years now, opinion in the West is that in some cases, intervention is needed. Putin until quite recently reasoned intervention in Syria was not called for, ostensibly because it meant meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. To Putin, meddling in the internal affairs of another sovereign state is no longer enough of an objection to stop him. In this opinion, he now finds himself in agreement with the West. However, I do not think this change in publically professed ideology will change Russia's position on Syria. Ideological consistency and foreign politics can be hard to reconcile.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Crimean parliament formally applies to join Russia (BBC News)

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10702323/Ukraine-Crimea-to-join-Russia-after-referendum-live.html

11.39 Crimea's parliament have introduced the Russian ruble as a second official currency alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia, AFP is reporting.

The parliament said in a statement that the hryvnia could continue to be used in Crimea until January 1, 2016.

11.58 More from the wires:

Crimea's separatist leader has said Russia sent the autonomous republic the equivalent of nearly 295 million euros in "financial assistance," a day after it voted overwhelmingly to split from Ukraine.

"The Russian Federation today gave the republic 15 billion rubles in financial assistance," local leader Sergiy Aksyonov said in a tweet.

 

[Grey Havoc]

14.34 Barack Obama is expected to give a statement on the situation in Ukraine within the next 15 minutes. In the meantime, Matthew Day reports from Warsaw that plans to establish a joint Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian military brigade have been re-launched following Russia's intervention in Crimea.

Poland’s defence ministry has announced it will re-launch plans to establish a joint Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian military brigade.

The ministry said defence ministers will meet this week to discuss the formation of the brigade that would straddle Nato’s eastern border and bring Ukraine’s armed forces closer to the Western fold.

Plans for a joint brigade had originally been struck in 2009 but had failed to make significant progress due to foot-dragging by Ukraine’s previous government, and difficulties in Polish-Lithuanian relations.

But the Ukraine crisis appears to have provided fresh momentum to the organisation of the brigade.

EDIT: Wiki article on LITPOLUKRBRIG (not yet updated with latest developments).

 

[Orionblamblam]

Russia can turn US to radioactive ash - Kremlin-backed journalist

"Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said on his weekly current affairs show.Behind him was a backdrop of a mushroom cloud following a nuclear blast.Kiselyov was named by President Vladimir Putin in December as the head of a new state news agency whose task will be to portray Russia in the best possible light.

Oh, how fun.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/17/obama-has-5-days-to-stop-putin-in-crimea.html

 

[bobbymike]

Russia can turn US to radioactive ash - Kremlin-backed journalist

"Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said on his weekly current affairs show.Behind him was a backdrop of a mushroom cloud following a nuclear blast.Kiselyov was named by President Vladimir Putin in December as the head of a new state news agency whose task will be to portray Russia in the best possible light.

Oh, how fun.

1) Russian reset?
2) Cold War is over?
3) Global Zero?
4) New START?
5) Neglect of the Triad
6) No nuke tests ~25 years
7) No new warheads ~25 years

Strategic deterrence is only for Cold War nutjobs that history has left behind, right?

 

[Triton]

"Cold War reflexes return to Europe over Ukraine"
By Paul Taylor
BERLIN Mon Mar 17, 2014 2:54am

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/17/us-ukraine-crisis-coldwar-analysis-idUSBREA2G07B20140317

(Reuters) - The Cold War is back.

Russia's military seizure of Crimea and preparations for a possible annexation of the southern Ukrainian province have revived fears, calculations and reflexes that had been rusting away since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Whether the crisis triggered by President Vladimir Putin's attempt to prevent Ukraine, a strategic former Soviet republic, turning to the West, becomes a turning point in international relations like the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States or the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, is not yet certain. There are still some steps to play out.

But policymakers and strategic analysts are thinking through the consequences of a potentially prolonged East-West tug-of-war. And states in the middle such as Germany and Poland are starting to weigh uncomfortable adjustments to their policy.

The standoff is already posing tricky questions about the balance between sanctions and diplomacy, setting loyalty tests for allies and raising the risk of spillover to other conflicts and of possible proxy wars.

"Welcome to Cold War Two," Russian analyst Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace declared in an article for Foreign Policy magazine.

"The recent developments have effectively put an end to the interregnum of partnership and cooperation between the West and Russia that generally prevailed in the quarter-century after the Cold War," he said.

Trenin is not alone in seeing the struggle for Ukraine as the biggest game-changer in European security since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

While no one imagines the superpowers returning to a hair-trigger nuclear confrontation or a bloc-against-bloc military buildup - for starters, Russia no longer has a bloc - the knock-on implications for other security problems, and for the world economy, are significant.

Frozen conflicts in Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan, all "near abroad" post-Soviet states, could be reactivated.

In Berlin, policymakers worry that Russia could raise the stakes by stopping cooperation with the West over Iran's nuclear program, the civil war in Syria, security in Afghanistan and managing North Korea's unpredictable leader.

Any one of those could make life more uncomfortable for the United States and its European and Asian allies by destabilizing the Middle East and southern Asia or raising tension on the Korean peninsula.

"THIS IS THE BIG ONE"

The realization that Germany, Europe's central power, has no special influence with Russia when the geopolitical chips are down, and that Chancellor Angela Merkel has been unable to sway Putin despite their common languages, has concentrated minds.

In hindsight, Russia's 2008 military intervention in breakaway regions of Georgia was a dry run. It had less global impact partly because an erratic Georgian leader fired the first shots, but also because it barely changed the status quo.

"Ukraine is different. It's on the fault line and it's too big," says Constanze Stelzenmueller, senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund think-tank, who led a recent major study on Germany's new foreign and security policy.

"Now we are entering a systemic competition. That's why I think the Cold War analogy is accurate. If you're in Berlin, that's the way it feels. This is the big one."

Despite its strong economic interests in Russia, where 6,200 German companies do business, and its dependency on Russian natural gas for 40 percent of supplies, Stelzenmueller expects Germany to "surprise on the upside by being firm".

Moscow is only Berlin's 11th trade partner, below Poland. Germany's main trade body said last week a trade conflict between the two would hurt German business but it would be life-threatening for a stagnant Russian economy.

As former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten observes, while almost every European household owns goods made in China, few if any have anything produced in Russia, except gas and vodka.

Central European economies could be severely disrupted if Moscow played with the gas taps, but stocks are high, winter is over and Russia needs the revenue.

GOING NEUTRAL?

In Cold War One, hawks in the United States and western Europe fretted that then West Germany could turn neutral in its pursuit of detente with the Soviet Union and its east European allies, including communist East Germany.

That never happened. Bonn remained firmly anchored in the Western political and military camp. But there were some epic transatlantic battles along the way.

They included a 1982 clash with the United States over a German-Soviet gas pipeline deal which the Reagan administration feared would make West Germany dangerously dependent on Moscow.

The Germans stood their ground. The pipeline was built and is one reason why Germany remains so hooked on Russian energy.

That dispute - just a year after a Moscow-inspired military crackdown in Poland - may have lessons for any new Cold War.

A year later, Bonn withstood mass protests and threats from Moscow to deploy U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles on its soil in response to Soviet SS-20 rockets pointed at the West. That led eventually to a negotiated end to the East-West arms race.

Then as now, a perceived Russian threat ultimately united Europeans and the United States, despite public misgivings reflected today in opinion polls showing neither Germans nor Americans are keen to get tough with Russia.

Then as now, both Moscow and the West turned to China to try to tip the balance. Then as now, U.S. strategists traded charges of appeasement and warmongering as they argued over the right policy mix between containing Russia and taking its interests into account.

If Putin moves to annex Crimea, Europeans may soon have to contemplate awkward sacrifices to show their resolve.

For France, this could mean suspending a contract to sell helicopter carriers to Russia. For Britain, closing its mansions and bank vaults to magnates close to Putin. For Germany, initiating gradual steps to reduce dependency on Russian gas.

It will take Cold War-style determination for any of that to happen. Maintaining EU unity if the going gets tough, with states in southern Europe such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria closer to Moscow, could prove a challenge.

 

[Triton]

"McCain: 'Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country'
"No more reset buttons" for Putin, senator says"

Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News
March 16, 2014 12:08 PM

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/mccain-ukraine-crimea-160807712.html

Sen. John McCain returned from a trip to Ukraine on Sunday, calling for "a fundamental re-assessment" of the United States' relationship with Russian Vladimir Putin.

“No more reset buttons," McCain told Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union." “No more reset buttons, no more ‘Tell Vladimir I’ll be more flexible.’ Treat him for what he is. That does not mean re-ignition of the Cold War. But it does mean treating him in the way that we understand an individual who believes in restoring the old Russian empire.”

McCain, who has been critical of the Obama administration's response to the crisis in Crimea, said the White House should target Russia's oil exports.

"Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country,” McCain said. “It’s kleptocracy, it’s corruption. It’s a nation that’s really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy. And so economic sanctions are important. Get some military assistance to Ukrainians, at least so they can defend themselves. Resume the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Look at Moldova and Georgia, both of whom are occupied by Russian troops as we speak, a path toward membership in NATO.”

Speaking in Kiev with a delegation of fellow U.S. senators on Saturday, McCain called for the United States to provide long-term military support — both "lethal and non-lethal" equipment — to Ukraine. "[It is] the right and decent thing to do," McCain said.

In a New York Times op-ed published Saturday, the Republican senator sharpened his criticism of the president.

"Crimea has exposed the disturbing lack of realism that has characterized our foreign policy under President Obama," McCain wrote. "It is this worldview, or lack of one, that must change."

McCain added: "Crimea must be the place where President Obama recognizes this reality and begins to restore the credibility of the United States as a world leader."

 

[GTX]

Part of the problem here is that much reporting (on both sides it would appear, though especially in the USA from what I have seen) is heavily tinged with domestic political aspects. For example, the apparent constant use of the issue as a political 'beating stick' against Obama.

 

[Grey Havoc]

18.36 The Russian media is starting to refer to a broad belt of land in southern Ukraine as Novorossiya, or New Russia, the Tsarist-era name for the region.


18.29 Mr Putin has signed a decree recognising Ukraine's Crimea region as a sovereign state, according to Russian news agencies citing the Kremlin press service.


Russian news agencies quoted the decree as recognising "the Republic of Crimea, in which the city of Sevastopol enjoys special status, as a sovereign and independent state."

Not looking good. At all.

 

[Grey Havoc]

19.25 On Tuesday Putin will be addressing both houses of the Russian parliament, which will inevitably be used as a response to the sanctions that were placed on Russian officials on Monday.

Russia's lower house of parliament is also expected to debate legislation on Friday simplifying the process under which the Kremlin can annex another part of a sovereign state.

 

[bobbymike]

http://loiter.co/v/watch-as-1000years-of-european-boarders-change/

Kind of interesting given all the talk of territories and ethnicities, etc.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26621726

Ukraine's acting President Olexander Turchynov said Kiev was ready for negotiations with Russia, but it would never accept the annexation of Crimea.

The Kiev authorities earlier said they had recalled their ambassador to Moscow for consultation.

Crimea's regional parliament, which was disbanded by Kiev last week, earlier declared independence.

MPs said Ukrainian laws now no longer applied in the region, and all Ukrainian state property belonged to an independent Crimea.

The peninsula will adopt the Russian currency, and clocks will move two hours forward to Moscow time by the end of March, the MPs' declaration said.

The document also appealed to "all countries of the world" to recognise Crimean independence.

Crimea's declaration

• Becomes independent state and applies to join Russia, with some autonomy
• Will adopt Russian rouble within one month
• Will move to Moscow time on 30 March
• Will offer Crimea-based soldiers chance to join Russian military

 

[Grey Havoc]

Via The Drudge Report: http://freebeacon.com/moscow-accuses-ukraine-of-electronic-attack-on-satellite/

Russia’s Ministry of Communications and Mass Media revealed Saturday that an electronic attack against a Russian television satellite was traced to Ukraine.

“Appropriate services have detected the exact location of the source in Ukraine’s territory,” the ministry said, according to state-run ITAR-TASS news agency.

The Russian ministry said the attempt to use “radio-electronic war means against a Russian relay satellite” violated the 1992 International Telecommunication Union charter.

A second Russian state-controlled news agency, Interfax, reported that the Ukrainians attempted to “decay” the orbit of the communications satellite. No details were provided. Some communications satellites can maneuver based on ground signals and apparently the unidentified source of the electronic attack sought to command the satellite to lower its orbit in an attempt to have it reenter the atmosphere and burn up.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Part of the problem here is that much reporting (on both sides it would appear, though especially in the USA from what I have seen) is heavily tinged with domestic political aspects. For example, the apparent constant use of the issue as a political 'beating stick' against Obama.

So... the Russians *didn't* invade Ukrainian territory and engineer a dubious referendum to chop up a sovereign nation? It was all a fever-dream created by reporters as a massive conspiracy against Obama?

 

[bobbymike]

Part of the problem here is that much reporting (on both sides it would appear, though especially in the USA from what I have seen) is heavily tinged with domestic political aspects. For example, the apparent constant use of the issue as a political 'beating stick' against Obama.

So... the Russians *didn't* invade Ukrainian territory and engineer a dubious referendum to chop up a sovereign nation? It was all a fever-dream created by reporters as a massive conspiracy against Obama?

It might be just the contradiction he sees between this president and the last one who always had the full and complete support of the opposition in all his foreign policy decisions

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10704798/Ukraine-crisis-Putin-to-announce-annexation-of-Crimea.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-strategy/201025-obama-putin-at-breaking-point

 

[Grey Havoc]

12.02 Putin has signed a treaty making Crimea part of Russa according to Reuters.


11.55 This from our reporter in Moscow, Katerina Kravtsova:


The atmosphere in the Kremlin ahead of the speech was festive, with Russian officials seem not to worry about EU-US sanctions against them and congratulating each other instead for results of the Sunday referendum in Crimea.

"The [Sunday] referendum is of a vital and historical importance," Mr Putin said, adding that Russia was intending to defend its national interests despite reaction of the Western countries.

Calling Crimea a historically Russian region and Sevastoplol the motherland of Russia's Black Sea military fleet, he said the peninsula was given to Ukraine by a mistake like a "sack of potatoes."

Putin said Russia did not send its troops to Crimea, because the 25,000 Russian soldiers had already been allocated there according to an international treaty.

"Crimea will remain both Russian and Ukrainian," he said but added it would never be given to the current Kiev authorities and legally must be under Moscow rule.

"I ask the Federation Council members and Duma deputies to approve a law that would make Crimea and Sevastopol parts of Russia," he said.

 

[Grey Havoc]

12.27 AFP is reporting that the Kremlin now considers Crimea part of Russia following the signing of the treaty:


"The Republic of Crimea is considered to be part of Russia from the date of the signing of the treaty," the Kremlin said, minutes after President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty with Crimean leaders on bringing the Russian-speaking region under Kremlin rule.


12.20 The agreement to make Crimea part of Russia still has to be endorsed by Russia's Constitutional Court and ratified by both houses of parliament to take effect. However those steps are considered mere formalities.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26625476

13:22: Interfax-Ukraine news agency reports that Ukrainian forces are digging trenches and building obstacles on the country's eastern border with Russia, as Russian troops are deployed 20-30 km (12-19 miles) away. The Ukrainian State Border Service says the Russian troops are near Ukraine's Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26627036

Torn allegiance

The man down from Moscow was a little bleary-eyed, possibly also because of the two-hour time difference which the new Crimean leadership plans to scrap at the end of this month.

What he could not understand, he said as he showed me some roubles, was why his Russian mobile phone had suddenly become blocked on Monday, while a local mobile he carried worked just fine.

I asked his friend if the seemingly irresistible move to Russian jurisdiction would hurt Crimeans working in the public sector.

Not really, he assured me, as most had already worked under Crimea's own autonomous authorities.

The exception was the Ukrainian military, he added, where officers who had sworn an oath to Ukraine were now torn between changing allegiance or leaving a place they regarded as home, where they had brought up their families and put down roots.

One of the saddest sights I witnessed in Crimea this week was an embarrassed Ukrainian naval officer turning back foreign media who wanted to visit his base.

Yes, there would have been plenty of military detail to film inside. But the real conflict is surely the one within these men, out of the camera's range, as the country they elected to serve slips further away by the hour.

 

[Grey Havoc]

BBC again:

15:11: Ukrainian and Russian military commanders are meeting for talks in Crimea at 1600 GMT (1800 local time) on Tuesday, Ukrainian navy commander Serhiy Hayduk says. "They will discuss the current situation and specific measures to prevent an escalation in Crimea," he told a meeting at the defence ministry. He added that up until Monday the Russian military were refusing to engage in talks with the Ukrainian side (Interfax-Ukraine/ BBC Monitoring).

 

[Grey Havoc]

BREAKING NEWS Russian troops are storming a Ukrainian military base in Simferopol, and one Ukranian soldier has been wounded in the attack, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reports. It quoted an officer at the military topography and navigation centre as saying that its commander has been captured and the rest of the troops have barricaded themselves in on the first floor of a building at the base.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Daily Telegraph stream:

15.15 A Ukrainian officer has reportedly been wounded in a shooting at a military base in the Crimean capital of Simferopol according to the Ukrainian military spokesman. According to Reuters troops are storming a Ukrainian base.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?236054-2nd-attempt-at-the-Ukraine-discussion-thread&p=7093459&viewfull=1#post7093459

Turkey will close the Bosphorus for Russian ships, if there is violence against the Crimean Tatars, said Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan.

In a phone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin, quoted by a diplomatic source, Erdogan also said that Turkey will not recognize the referendum in Crimea in which 97% of the voters cast their ballots in favour of joining the Russian Federation.


“Turkey wants Ukraine to keep its territorial integrity,” Erdogan said. “If NATO takes a decision on the matter, we will certainly stick with it.” -

http://www.novinite.com/articles/159....RVZTWXXG.dpuf

 

[Grey Havoc]

Daily Telegraph stream:

15.15 A Ukrainian officer has reportedly been wounded in a shooting at a military base in the Crimean capital of Simferopol according to the Ukrainian military spokesman. According to Reuters troops are storming a Ukrainian base.

15.29 Reuters has a report on the Ukrainian officer who was wounded. A Ukrainian officer was wounded in a shooting at a military facility on the outskirts of the Crimean capital Simferopol, a military spokesman said, but it was unclear who was behind the incident.


"An officer was wounded in the neck," said Vladislav Seleznyov, a Ukrainian military spokesman in Crimea.


Many Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea have been under the control of Russian forces for several weeks after Russian troops poured into the Black Sea peninsula ahead of a referendum at the weekend which handed over control from Ukraine to Russia.

 

[Grey Havoc]

BBC News:

15:42: More on those reports of Ukrainian troops being attacked at a base in the main Crimean city of Simferopol: "One Ukrainian serviceman has been wounded in the neck and collarbone," a Ukrainian military spokesman tells Reuters. "Now we have barricaded ourselves on the second floor. The headquarters has been taken and the commander has been taken. They want us to put down our arms but we do not intend to surrender."

 

[Grey Havoc]

As before:

BREAKING NEWS Ukrainian serviceman is killed during attack on a Ukrainian base in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, news agency Interfax quotes a military spokesman as saying (Reuters).

 

[Orionblamblam]

Turkey will close the Bosphorus for Russian ships, if there is violence against the Crimean Tatars, said Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan.

Huh. Imagine that.

Maybe that's what the US Navy SEALs can add to this situation: take ships from criminals and use them to enforce a blockade of the Black Sea.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Daily Telegraph again:

17.02 This just in from Reuters, US vice president Joe Biden says the U.S. is considering rotating American forces to the Baltic region as a step toward ensuring the collective defense of NATO allies against Russian aggression.

Biden says that those forces could conduct ground and naval exercises, plus engage in training missions.

16.48 This from Raf Sanchez in Washington:

"Bizarrely no one has asked about reports of the dead soldier or Ukrainian PM's statement. Here's the White House so far.

The White House said "more is coming" in terms of sanctions against Russia but did not specify what form they would take.

"We condemn Russia's moves to formally annex the Crimean region of Ukraine. Such action is a threat to international peace and security and it is against international law. We would not recognise this attempted annexation. As we have said, there are costs with such action," said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

Mr Carney would not say whether the US would push for Russia to be expelled from the G8."

16.41 German chancellor Angela Merkel says that she and Barack Obama have agreed in a phone call that Russia's acceptance of Crimea into Russia is an "unacceptable violation" of Ukraine's territorial integrity.

 

[GTX]

use them to enforce a blockade of the Black Sea.

And how exactly would you propose to do that?

 

[Triton]

"Crimea's vote: Was it legal?"
by Halimah Abdullah, CNN
updated 4:01 PM EDT, Mon March 17, 2014

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/17/world/europe/ukraine-vote-legality/

(CNN) -- Depending on who you ask, Crimea's decision to secede from Ukraine was either an unconstitutional split manipulated by Russia or a move consistent with international law upholding the region's right to govern itself.

The United States and its European allies say Sunday's referendum vote violated Ukraine's newly reforged constitution and amounts to a thinly veiled attempt by Russia to expand its borders to the Black Sea peninsula under a threat of force.

Moscow asserts Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in an illegal coup, which ended Ukraine's constitutional authority. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues Crimeans should have the right to decide how they want to be governed going forward.

So who's right?

"The answer depends on what your perspective is," said David Rothkopf, editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

"The U.S. is buying into the argument of the Ukraine government, which is that the secession of Crimea from Ukraine is not constitutional under the terms of the Ukrainian constitution," Rothkopf said.

"The alternative argument is that all peoples have a right of self-determination and that if the people of Crimea choose not to be part of Ukraine, that is their prerogative in the same way that it was the choice of colonial powers to break away from the imperial powers that claimed them or parts of the former Yugoslavia were free to head off on their own," he added.

The standoff between the United States and Russia resembles tension from the Cold War era.

"We'll continue to make clear to Russia that further provocations will achieve nothing except to further isolate Russia and diminish its place in the world," President Barack Obama said on Monday.

"The international community will continue to stand together to oppose any violations of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity; and continued Russia military intervention in Ukraine will only deepen Russia's diplomatic isolation and exact a greater toll on the Russia economy," Obama said.

The United States and Europe imposed travel bans and froze assets of senior Russian and Crimean officials.

The Obama administration went a step further by banning entry and freezing all U.S. assets held by any Russian government official or people with close financial ties to 11 people, including advisers to Putin.

Legal or not, Crimean referendum will shape Ukraine crisis

Separate from the vote, Crimean lawmakers approved a resolution on Monday that declared the Black Sea peninsula an independent, sovereign state and requested to join the Russian Federation.

Putin later in the day signed a decree that recognized Crimea's independence, the Kremlin said. He will address a joint session of Parliament on Crimea on Tuesday.

Putin spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently by phone and stressed the Crimean referendum was in accordance with international law, including Article 1 of the U.N. Charter regarding the principle of self-determination.

"It was emphasized that Russia will respect the choice of the Crimean people," according to a Kremlin statement summarizing that conversation.

Obama told Putin during a phone call on Sunday that "Russia's actions were in violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to the White House.

Putin pushed back, according to a statement from the Kremlin, and said the situation in Crimea is akin to Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia in 2008.

"Regarding the March 16 referendum in Crimea, Mr Putin said that the decision to hold the referendum was in line with international law and the U.N. Charter, and was also in line with the precedent set by Kosovo," the Kremlin said.

"The referendum was organized in such a way as to guarantee Crimea's population the possibility to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination," it said.

West hits back at Russians over Crimea

Even within Crimea's pro-Russia majority, opinions about the legality of seceding are split.

Voters proudly proclaimed their support for rejoining Russia as they stood in line in dreary weather to vote. However, one, who was too afraid to speak to CNN on camera, proclaimed the referendum illegal.

The ethnic Tatars and younger voters have also questioned the legality of secession. Many of the Tatar minority boycotted the referendum with some leaders calling it "a farce" forced by armed men.

As the United States and Russia attempt to hash out their differences, pressure mounts for Putin to move quickly and carefully in resolving the Crimean crisis, Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute told CNN International.

"He basically has two choices. Choice Number One would be to move fairly quickly to annex Crimea and that is going to then seem as a very naked land grab and will make it very difficult then for a dialogue to move forward," Pifer said.

"That move will likely mean Western nations will ratchet up the level of sanctions, Pifer said.

"The alternative is they take the vote but that the Russians don't move very quickly," Pifer said.

"They let Crimea basically stay in some limbo status which will create some opportunity perhaps for negotiation that can diffuse this crisis."

 

[Grey Havoc]

BBC News:

19:13: A member of the pro-Russian Crimean self-defence group has been killed and another wounded in Simferopol, internet-based Crimean news agency Kryminform has reported, quoting a source in Simferopol's law enforcement bodies.
"Someone opened fire from the window of one of the buildings on Simferopol's Kubanska Street, presumably with a sniper's rifle...a member of the self-defence (group) was killed and another wounded," Kryminform said. (BBC Monitoring)

19:07: At least one Russian media outlet says the fatality in Simferopol was from pro-Russian self-defence forces, the BBC's Mark Lowen in the city says.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Daily Telegraph:

18.22 The Ukrainian government's official website confirms that a junior officer has been killed in Simferopol. His surname is given as Kakurin, no first name . A captain named Fedun was wounded in the neck and the arm, the website says.

 

[Grey Havoc]

BBC News:

19:30: Armed attackers used the commander of a Ukrainian military unit in Simferopol as a live shield to gain access to the building in the same incident in which a warrant officer sustained fatal gunshot wounds, according to Vladyslav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, who was speaking live over the phone with broadcaster 5 Kanal. (BBC Monitoring)

 

[Grey Havoc]

Daily Telegraph:

19.22 The AP news agency has footage of the mystery gunmen on the roof of the military base in Simferopol where a soldier was killed earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcd9Tn_4854&feature=player_embedded

17.53 Ukraine's defence ministry has said its soldiers were "allowed to use arms" after suffering their first casualty in Crimea since Russian and pro-Kremlin troops seized the peninsula nearly three weeks ago.

"For their self defence and protection of their lives, Ukrainian servicemen... deployed in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea are allowed to use arms," the Ukrainian defence ministry said in a statement.

It appears the attack was not carried out by Russian soldiers, but by armed men sympathetic to Moscow.