KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian and Western leaders tried Sunday to dissuade President Vladimir Putin of Russia from overplaying his hand and ordering an invasion of eastern Ukraine, even as Russian forces and their sympathizers in the Crimean Peninsula worked to disarm or neutralize any Ukrainian resistance there.
What began in Ukraine three months ago as a protest against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, who has since been driven from power, has now turned into a big-power confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War and a significant challenge to international agreements on the sanctity of the borders of post-Soviet Union nations.
The Russian incursion also poses a new crisis for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which embraced the new government in Kiev but now finds itself confronted with an ever more thinly veiled invasion of Ukraine.
Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Kiev on Tuesday to show U.S. support for Ukraine, a senior U.S. official announced Sunday evening.
U.S. intelligence agencies tracked thousands of additional Russian troops arriving in Crimea on Sunday, bolstering the Russian forces already in the area, a U.S. official said. The official gave no further detail about the types of forces, and did not say whether the Obama administration thinks that Putin will send even more troops in the days to come.
Another senior Obama administration official said Russian troops now have “complete operational control” of the Crimean Peninsula, with some 6,000 airborne and naval forces there. The official confirmed that the Russians were flying in additional reinforcements to Ukraine on Sunday, adding that the Russian military is “settling in” as an occupying force.
Putin has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and those of Russian-speakers in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Faced with the Russian threat, Ukraine’s new government moved to consolidate its authority, naming new regional governors in the pro-Russia east and enlisting the support of the country’s wealthy businessmen.
So far, however, Ukraine’s new government and the West have been powerless to counter Russia’s tactics. Armed men in uniforms without insignia have moved freely about Crimea for days, occupying airports, smashing equipment at an air base and besieging a Ukrainian infantry base.
For the most part, Ukrainian military forces have stayed in their barracks, and in some cases their weapons have been stored in an attempt to avoid an escalation, the official said.
Unidentified soldiers were also seen cutting power to the headquarters of the Ukrainian naval forces in Crimea.
After the newly appointed Ukrainian navy chief, Rear Adm. Denis Berezovsky, swore allegiance to the people of Crimea, who are heavily pro-Russian, the government in Kiev immediately removed him and said it would investigate him for treason.
A YouTube video showed Berezovsky, eyes downcast, quickly muttering a statement, saying, “I, Berezovsky Denis, swear allegiance to the Crimean people and pledge to protect it, as required by the regulations.”
Russian troops, meanwhile, pulled up to the Ukrainian military base at Perevalne on the Crimean Peninsula in a convoy Sunday that included at least 13 trucks and four armored vehicles with mounted machine guns. The trucks carried 30 soldiers each and had Russian license plates.
In response, a dozen Ukrainian soldiers, some with clips in their rifles, placed a tank at the base’s gate, leaving the two sides in a tense standoff.
A Ukrainian marine base in the Crimean port of Feodosiya was also surrounded, with the soldiers refusing to disarm.
At the Balaklava offices of the Ukrainian coast guard and the border police, however, the Russian troop trucks that effectively besieged it Saturday were already gone. A member of the Sevastopol Council, Sergei Nepran, said there had been an agreement with the Russians that the Ukrainians would remain in the office and not be put out to sea.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who spoke with Putin in a telephone call Sunday evening, accused Russia of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine and breaking the Budapest Agreement of 1994 to respect the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, according to a statement from Merkel’s office.
Putin, the statement said, agreed to Merkel’s suggestion to send a “fact-finding mission,” possibly led by the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to open a political dialogue.
Putin “directed her attention to the unrelenting threat of violence from ultranationalist forces [in Ukraine] that endangered the life and legal interests of Russian citizens,” according to a Kremlin statement.
“The measures taken by Russia are fully adequate with regard to the current extraordinary situation,” it said.
Merkel has maintained strong, if not always warm, ties with the Russian president and has often taken a leading role in Europe’s dialogue with Russia. However, Germany, together with Poland, has also worked to draw Ukraine closer to the European Union.
Obama also spoke Sunday with Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.
Ukraine put its military on high alert Sunday and appealed for international help to avoid what it feared was the possibility of a wider invasion by Russia.
Sunday began with Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, telling reporters in English, “This is the red alert - this is not a threat, this is actually a declaration of war to my country,” a reference to approval by Russia’s parliament on Saturday of the deployment of troops to any part of Ukraine where Moscow deems Russians to be in danger.
Yatsenyuk warned that Ukraine was on the “brink of disaster” and asked the international community to stand by his government in Kiev.
“We believe that our Western partners and the entire global community will support the territorial integrity and unity of Ukraine,” he said Sunday in Kiev.
Western powers on Sunday prepared a tough response to Russia’s military advance into Ukraine and warned that Moscow could face economic penalties, diplomatic isolation and bolstered allied defenses in Europe unless it retreats.
Kerry on Sunday condemned Russia for what he called an “incredible act of aggression” and threatened “very serious repercussions.” He suggested what many were saying as fact later in the day, that Russia was “trying to annex Crimea.”
If Russia doesn’t “step back” from its military incursion, “there could even be, ultimately, asset freezes, visa bans” and disruption of trade, Kerry said on NBC’s Meet the Press program.
Laying out the economic stakes for Russia, Kerry also said Russia “may not even remain in the G-8 if this continues,” referring to the group that Russia joined after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The White House issued a joint statement Sunday evening on behalf of the Group of Seven saying the G-7 had suspended participation in the planning for an international summit in Russia this summer. In the joint statement, the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom condemned Russia’s “clear violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” They said Russia’s advances in Ukraine violate the “principles and values” on which the G-7 and G-8 operate.
A U.S. or NATO military intervention in Ukraine would be “the last thing anybody wants,” Kerry said. The crisis doesn’t presage a return to a Cold War standoff between the U.S. and Russia, he said.
“This does not have to be, and should not be, an East-West struggle,” Kerry said. “This is not about Russia and the U.S. This is about the people of Ukraine.”
The NATO alliance held an emergency meeting in Brussels that was mostly designed to reassure members with Russian minorities, like the Baltic states, and allies of Ukraine, like Poland, that NATO was ready to defend them. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, though it has some military and political cooperation with it.
Before the NATO meeting Sunday, its secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen,told Russia to stop its military activity and threats against Ukraine.
“What Russia is doing now in Ukraine violates the principles of the United Nations Charter,” he said. “It threatens peace and security in Europe. Russia must stop its military activities and its threats.”
Rasmussen said he called the meeting “because of Russia’s military action in Ukraine and because of President Putin’s threats against this sovereign nation.”
But it was difficult to see what immediate penalties would be put on the government in Moscow to retreat on Crimea or to not broaden its military moves into eastern Ukraine.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told a Washington audience Sunday that the United States is ready to work with other countries and the International Monetary Fund to provide support to bolster Ukraine’s economy. He said he had been assured in discussions with Ukrainian officials that the new government is prepared to pursue the necessary steps to overhaul the country’s ailing economy.
Lew said that the administration was ready to supplement emergency IMF loans to cushion the impact economic overhauls would have on vulnerable Ukrainians.
In Kiev, Moscow and other cities, thousands of protesters took to the streets to either decry the Russian occupation or celebrate Crimea’s apparent return to its former ruler.
“Support us, America!” a group of protesters chanted outside the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. One young girl held up a placard reading: “No Russian aggression!”
In Moscow, there were some small protests of the military action, though they were quickly broken up by the police, even as many more demonstrated in favor of Putin’s actions.
“Russia! Russia!” a crowd chanted in Moscow.
Eastern Ukraine was relatively calm Sunday, with the Ukrainian government making plans to reinforce its control.
Pro-Moscow demonstrators flew Russian flags Saturday and Sunday at government buildings in cities including Kharkiv, Donetsk, Odessa and Dneprotrovsk. In places, they clashed with anti-Russian protesters and guards defending the buildings.
In Kharkiv, the eastern city that is the country’s second-largest, a sprawling pro-Russian protest camp occupied the central square, and Russian flags were on display. Many said they would even prefer that Russian troops invade the city, just 20 miles from the border, instead of submitting to Kiev’s rule.
In Crimea, where pro-Russian authorities have announced a referendum on autonomy on March 30, Ukrainian forces were under tremendous pressure. Hundreds of troops acting in the name of the provisional pro-Russian government in Crimea fanned out to persuade the thin Ukrainian forces there to give up their arms or swear allegiance to the new authorities, while the new government in Kiev tried to keep their loyalty while ordering them not to shoot unless under fire.
The speaker of Crimea’s Legislature, Vladimir Konstantinov, was quoted as saying local authorities do not recognize the new government in Kiev. He said the referendum on March 30 would ask voters about the region’s future status.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Erlanger, Alison Smale, David M. Herszenhorn, Andrew Higgin, Andrew Roth and Andrew Kramer of The New York Times; by David McHugh, Tim Sullivan, Lara Jakes, Julie Pace, Greg Keller, Laura Mills, Lynn Berry, Greg Katz, Geir Moulson, Lara Jakes, Martin Crutsinger and staff members of The Associated Press, and by David Lerman, Greg Giroux, Daryna Krasnolutska, Volodymyr Verbyany, Ekaterina Shatalova, Silla Brush and Brian Wingfi eld of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/03/2014