With gunmen occupying the top floor of the building and the Russian flag flying from the roof, Crimea’s parliament passed a motion on Thursday calling for a referendum on this Russian-speaking region’s future as part of Ukraine.
This Black Sea peninsula’s move toward autonomy – or some kind of association with Russia – was accompanied by fresh sabre-rattling from the Kremlin, which put fighter jets on alert a day after announcing snap military drills along its border with Ukraine. And, in his first statement in almost a week, the deposed Viktor Yanukovych said he had taken refuge in Russia from “extremists” in Ukraine who had threatened him with bodily harm.
Moscow has denounced last week’s fall of Mr. Yanukovych and the rise of pro-Western forces in Kiev as an armed coup, and has refused to recognize the new government. Crimea was part of Russia for two centuries before Nikita Khrushechev transferred it to Soviet Ukraine in 1954, and the strategic region is still home to the warships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
“I am addressing the Russian Black Sea Fleet command with a demand: all military servicemen should stay within the boundaries of the territories stipulated by the agreement,” Ukraine’s interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said Thursday. “Any movement of military servicemen with weapons outside this territory will be viewed as military aggression”. The Globe and Mail informs.
