2 airports in Crimea taken; Russia suspect

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine - Armed men took control of key airports in Crimea on Friday and Russian transport planes flew into the strategic region, Ukrainian officials said, as U.S. President Barack Obama warned Russia against intervening militarily in Ukraine.

“There will be costs,” Obama said in a brief statement from the White House.

At the United Nations, the Ukrainian ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said 10 Russian transport aircraft and 11 attack helicopters had arrived in Crimea illegally and that Russian troops had taken control of two airports in the Crimea region.

He described the gunmen posted outside the two airports as Russian armed forces as well as “unspecified” units.

“Some of them identified themselves as Russians. We know specifically some of the units,” Sergeyev said. He also said the Russians had captured the main air traffic control center in Crimea.

Serhiy Astakhov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border service, said eight Russian transport planes landed in Crimea with unknown cargo.

He said the Il-76 planes arrived unexpectedly and were given permission to land, one after the other, at an air base north of the regional capital, Simferopol. Astakhov said the people in the planes refused to identify themselves and waved off customs officials, saying they didn’t require their services.

The Kremlin announced Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directed his officials to maintain normal trade relations with Ukraine, consult with other countries and the International Monetary Fund over Ukraine’s economy and consider providing humanitarian relief to Crimea.

Moscow said it had not violated agreements not to intervene in Ukrainian affairs and attributed the presence of troops there to “internal political processes in Ukraine,” according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.

Russia has numerous military facilities in Crimea, the most important of which is the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, in Sevastopol. Its military vehicles regularly move around the peninsula, but Friday’s activity was more intense than usual, residents said.

Russia is supposed to notify Ukraine of any troop movements outside the Black Sea Fleet naval base it maintains in Sevastopol under a lease agreement with Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the military vehicles were deployed to ensure the security of its base and didn’t contradict the lease terms. A duty officer at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it had no information about the vehicles’ movements.

Ukraine’s newly named interior minister accused Russia of military aggression.

“I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation,” Arsen Avakov wrote in a Facebook post.

Oleksandr Turchynov, who stepped in as president after Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev last weekend, urged Putin to stop “provocations” in Crimea and pull back military forces from the peninsula. Turchynov said the Ukrainian military would fulfill its duty but would not be drawn into provocations.

Earlier Friday, Yanukovych resurfaced in Russia to deliver a condemnation of a “gangster coup.”

Appearing for the first time since fleeing Ukraine, Yanukovych vowed to “keep fighting for the future of Ukraine” and ruled out seeking Russian military help.

He again claimed he is still the legitimate president of Ukraine and that lawmakers in Kiev had not taken the steps required by the constitution to remove him from power.

“Nobody deposed me,” he said in a statement, speaking in Russian. “I had to leave Ukraine because there was a direct and imminent threat to my life.” He said Ukraine had been taken over by nationalist thugs, with the assistance of the West, and called for a restoration of the government he once led.

“I think that everything that has happened in Crimea is a natural reaction to the gangster coup that happened in Kiev,” he said.

“Any military action in this situation is unacceptable,” Yanukovych said in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, near the border with Ukraine. Then, seeking to make a firm point, he tried - and failed - to break a pen.

In Kiev, the prosecutor-general’s office said it would seek Yanukovych’s extradition to Ukraine, where he is wanted on suspicion of mass murder in violent clashes last week between protesters and police that left more than 80 people dead.

U.S. ‘DEEPLY CONCERNED’

In an unscheduled appearance at the White House on Friday afternoon, Obama said the U.S. is “deeply concerned” by reports of military movements by Russia inside Ukraine.

He said any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be destabilizing and would represent a “profound interference” in the Ukrainian people’s right to determine their own future.

He said the United States would stand with the world to condemn a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the appearance of the armed men at the airports.

“We raised the issue of the airports, raised the issue of armored vehicles, raised the issue of personnel in various places,” Kerry told reporters in Washington.

Lavrov asserted that Russia would respect the sovereignty of Ukraine, Kerry said. But Kerry said he had told his Russian counterpart that “it is important for everybody to be extremely careful not to inflame the situation.”

Kerry and White House spokesman Jay Carney both said any Russian military intervention would be a grave mistake and that the United States was watching closely. They did not spell out any consequences for an intervention.

Other U.S. officials said Obama might scrap plans to attend an international summit in Russia this summer and could also halt discussions on deepening trade ties with Moscow. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said the United States was proposing an urgent mediation mission to help resolve Ukraine’s crisis.

Late Friday, Putin had conversations with several European leaders about Ukraine.

“It was emphasized that it is extremely important not to allow further escalation of violence and normalize the situation as soon as possible,” the Russian presidential press service said.

FLIGHTS CANCELED

As the armed men took control of the airports, Ukraine International Airlines said it had canceled flights to and from the Simferopol airport Friday evening and today because of the closure of the airspace over Crimea. The announcement did not say who had ordered the closure.

A woman answering the Simferopol airport passenger help line said the airport was not closed but that all flights were canceled “due to the situation in Crimea.”

At the Simferopol airport, the armed men set up positions around a central administrative building, but they did not appear to enter the terminals. There were no roadblocks or checkpoints on the roads leading to the airport or on the grounds of the airport.

After nightfall, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire member of the Ukraine parliament, said outside the airport building that he had gone to Crimea to negotiate with the regional parliament on behalf of the national government in Kiev. He said his mission was “to do everything not to allow an escalation of violence” and to stress to the Crimeans that they were fellow Ukrainians and that Ukraine must not be divided.

He referred to the soldiers standing behind him as “foreign” and more than once gestured toward them with distaste.

“What I cannot accept is the presence here of foreign troops,” he said. “We cannot accept the danger for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Meanwhile, a confrontation was underway at a second airport that is used for military and some civilian flights.

In his Facebook post, Avakov said units believed to be affiliated with the Russian military had blocked access to the airport overnight, with some Ukrainian military personnel and border guards inside. Avakov wrote that the men blocking the airport were also wearing camouflage uniforms with no identifying insignia, but he added, “They do not hide their affiliation.”

Avakov said the airport was not functioning but that “there is no armed conflict yet.”

At the international airport in Simferopol, Avakov said, Ukrainian authorities confronted the armed men and told them, “You soldiers have no right to be located here.” The uniformed men responded curtly, “We do not have instructions to negotiate with you,” he said.

Igor Tresilaty, who identified himself as assistant to the general director at the international airport, said Friday that the soldiers were remaining in common areas outside the airport, in the restaurant and in parking lots.

He said he did not know who they were and expressed no curiosity about them, saying only that they looked professional.

“They’re walking around, but we, nor the police, can’t have any complaint against them because they’re not violating anything, they’re not touching anyone,” Tresilaty said.

One man who identified himself only as Vladimir said the men were part of the Crimean People’s Brigade, which he described as a self-defense unit ensuring that no “radicals and fascists” arrive from other parts of Ukraine. There was no way to verify his account.

On Friday evening, unknown people captured several communication stations of the Ukrtelecom company responsible for much of the telephone and Internet communication in Crimea, the company said in a news release distributed to UNIAN news agency.

“Resulting from this, on the territory of Crimea, making landline phone communication, Internet access and cellphone communication is practically stopped,” the statement said.

Gunmen also surrounded the main regional state television network, Krym, in the center of Simferopol, UNIAN reported.

Friday’s deployments happened a day after masked gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles seized the parliament and government offices in Simferopol and raised the Russian flag. Ukrainian police cordoned off the area but didn’t confront the gunmen. They remained in control of the buildings Friday.

Ukraine’s population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support.

Crimea, a southeastern peninsula of Ukraine that has semiautonomous status, was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Information for this article was contributed by Dalton Bennett, Laura Mills, Ivan Sekretarev, Maria Danilova, Karl Ritter, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Geir Moulson, Julie Pace, Matthew Lee and staff members of The Associated Press; by Michael D. Shear,Andrew Higgins, Steven Lee Myers and staff members of The New York Times; by Sergei L. Loiko and Carol J.Williams of the Los Angeles Times; and by Will Englund, Kathy Lally and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post.