Ukraine mobilized for war yesterday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
“This is not a threat — this is actually the declaration of war to my country,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled last week.
Putin obtained permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine, spurning Western pleas not to intervene.
Photo: Reuters
Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea — an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. Yesterday, they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded that the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, although no shots were fired.
The Ukrainian Security Council ordered its general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert, council secretary Andriy Parubiy announced.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry was ordered to conduct a callup of reserves — theoretically all men up to age 40 in a country with universal male conscription, though Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for significant numbers of them.
“If President Putin wants to be the president who started the war between two neighboring and friendly countries, between Ukraine and Russia, so he has reached this target within a few inches. We are on the brink of disaster,” Yatseniuk said in televised remarks in English, appealing for Western support.
In Kiev’s Independence Square, where anti-Yanukovych protesters had camped out for months, thousands demonstrated against Russian military action.
Of potentially even greater concern than Russia’s seizure of the Crimea are eastern swathes of the country, where most of the ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language.
Those areas saw violent protests on Saturday, with pro-Moscow demonstrators hoisting flags at government buildings and calling for Russia to defend them. Kiev said the protests were manufactured by Russia, accusing Moscow of sending hundreds of its citizens across the border to stage them.
Putin’s declaration that he has the right to invade his neighbor — for which he quickly received the unanimous approval of his senate — brought the prospect of war to a country of 46 million people on the ramparts of central Europe.
“[US] President Obama expressed his deep concern over Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is a breach of international law,” the White House said after the leaders spoke for 90 minutes on Saturday.
Ukraine has appealed for help to NATO, and directly to Britain and the US, as co-signatories with Moscow to a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine’s security after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accused Russia of threatening peace and security in Europe before NATO ambassadors met in Brussels to discuss their next steps.
Washington has proposed sending monitors to Ukraine under the flags of the UN or Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, bodies where Moscow would have a veto.
So far, the Western response has been largely symbolic. Obama and other leaders suspended plans to attend a G8 summit in Sochi, Russia, where Putin has just finished staging the Winter Olympics. Some countries recalled ambassadors.
“This is probably the most dangerous situation in Europe since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968,” a Western official said. “Realistically, we have to assume the Crimea is in Russian hands. The challenge now is to deter Russia from taking over the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine.”
Kiev said its troops were encircled in at least three places.
Igor Mamchev, a Ukrainian navy colonel at a small base near the regional capital Simferopol, told Ukraine’s Channel 5 television that a truckload of Russian troops had arrived at his checkpoint and ordered him to surrender.
“I replied that, as I am a member of the armed forces of Ukraine, under orders of the Ukrainian Navy, there could be no discussion of disarmament. In case of any attempt to enter the military base, we will use all means, up to lethal force,” Mamchev said. “We are military people, who have given our oath to the people of Ukraine and will carry out our duty until the end.”
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