MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin of Russia broke his silence over the Ukraine crisis for the first time since it boiled over into a possible armed confrontation, saying Tuesday that he saw no reason for Russian forces to intervene in eastern Ukraine at the moment but leaving open the possibility of military action.
Russia “reserves the right to use all means at our disposal to protect” speakers of Russian in the country’s south and east if they are in danger, he said. He made the comments in an hour-long unscripted news conference in Moscow in which he described events in Ukraine as an unconstitutional coup and expressed contempt toward the United States.
The former Soviet republic on Russia’s doorstep has been convulsed in a political and economic crisis for months, resulting the Ukraine president fleeing the capital, Kiev. The crisis escalated last week when Russia moved to strengthen control over Ukraine’s largely Russian-speaking Crimean peninsula, home to the Kremlin’s Black Sea Fleet.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kiev on Tuesday, carrying a promise of a $1 billion energy subsidy package, as Russian soldiers deployed in Crimea fired warning shots and the pro-Kremlin regional leader there said he was accelerating a plan for an independence referendum.
In the midst of the crisis, Russia also successfully test fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile, Russian news agencies reported, although the test had been scheduled well in advance and the United States said it had been previously notified.
Putin seemed eager to explain his motives in Ukraine on Tuesday. But he offered little about the strategic vision behind Russia’s actions and gave no sense of immediate steps that could be taken to resolve the crisis. He also insisted that he did not want a military conflict in Ukraine.
“I want you to understand me clearly,” he said. “If we make such a decision, it will only be for the protection of Ukrainian citizens.”
He flatly denied that Russian troops had occupied Crimea and said the U.S. government had interfered in Ukraine “from across the pond in America as if they were sitting in a laboratory and running experiments on rats, without any understanding of the consequences.”
Putin delivered a version of the crisis almost entirely at odds with the view held by most officials in Europe and the United States, as well as by many Ukrainians.
He described anti-government protests in Kiev as an “orgy” of radicals and nationalists, noting a swastika armband that he had glimpsed in images of the crowd. He also insisted that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych had never ordered security forces to shoot protesters, suggesting that snipers stationed on rooftops “may have been provocateurs from opposition parties.”
Putin said Russia stepped in to assist Yanukovych, but did so for humanitarian reasons “because death is the simplest way to get rid of the legitimate president, and it would have happened. I think he would have been probably killed.”
Putin also acknowledged that he had met two days ago with Yanukovych, saying he was “safe and sound” and dismissing rumors that the ousted Ukrainian president had died of a heart attack.
And he expressed confidence that the crisis would not boil over into war.
“I am convinced that Ukrainian personnel and Russian personnel will not be on different sides of the barricades, they will be on the same side of the barricades,” he said. “There has not been a shot fired in Crimea. The tense situation in Crimea, related to the possibility of the use of force, has been exhausted. There was no necessity of that.”
Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Kerry dismissed Putin’s justifications for the intervention, saying Russia had violated international law and Ukrainian sovereignty.
“I know President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a different set of interpretations, but I don’t think that’s fooling anybody,” Obama said in Washington. He added that Ukrainians should have the right to determine their own fate in elections now slated for May.
Kerry, meanwhile, met with the fledgling Ukrainian leadership, becoming the highest-ranking Western official to do so. Speaking to reporters afterward, he urged Putin to stand down and said the U.S. is looking for ways to de-escalate the mounting tensions.
“It is clear that Russia has been working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further,” Kerry said. “It is not appropriate to invade a country, and, at the end of a barrel of a gun, dictate what you are trying to achieve.”
He said penalties against Russia are “not something we are seeking to do, it is something Russia is pushing us to do.”
Putin took issue with Western threats of reprisals,including sanctions and a boycott of the meeting of the Group of Eight industrial nations that is scheduled to be held in Russia.
“All threats against Russia are counterproductive and harmful,” he said, according to Reuters, adding that Russia was ready to host the G-8 but Western leaders who did not want to attend “don’t need to.”
Putin made the remarks Tuesday after he declared the end of a scheduled military exercise in western Russia near Ukraine’s border last week, telling military units that participated to return to their permanent garrisons.
Tension remained high in Crimea, where troops, believed to be Russian, are blockading Ukrainian military facilities in what the authorities in Kiev have called a declaration of war. The troops, who have taken control of the Belbek air base, fired warning shots into the air as some 300 Ukrainian soldiers, who previously manned the airfield, demanded their jobs back.
Putin denied that the military personnel in unmarked uniforms who now control much of Crimea are Russian forces, describing them instead as “local defense forces.”
He said Russia is not considering annexing Crimea, but said Crimean citizens should be allowed to determine their own future, presumably as part of Russia or Ukraine.
“We are not considering this possibility,” he said. “It’s up to people living in a certain territory if they can exercise their free will and determine their future.”
In Crimea, the autonomous region’s prime minister said Tuesday that most Ukrainian military units had surrendered and pledged allegiance to his pro-Russian government and that local officials were working to speed up a referendum on independence.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office announced he had sent a senior adviser, Robert Serry, to Crimea, while Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson remained in Kiev, where he had spoken to members of the acting Ukrainian government including the interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov.
Ban’s off ice said in a statement that Eliasson had thanked Turchynov for his government’s “measured response to unfolding events.” The statement gave few hints of diplomatic options but that“the United Nations’ efforts in this regard are rooted in the U.N. Charter, in particular the principles of territorial integrity and the peaceful settlement of disputes.”
Meanwhile, NATO members in emergency talks pledged “solidarity” in the Ukrainian crisis on Tuesday, but there were signs of division in the West over how to respond to Russia.
Poland called Tuesday’s meeting of NATO members by invoking a rarely used lever activated by members who believe their security or territorial integrity is under threat. Like the United States, Poland is seeking a more aggressive stance against Putin, calling for economic sanctions and other punitive steps.
Other powers in Europe - including Britain and Germany - have offered harsh condemnations of the Russian intervention in Crimea, while keeping one eye on their economic interests. Russia is Germany’s fourth-largest trading partner outside the European Union and its single-largest supplier of energy. The French and British also have strong economic ties to Russia.
The Russians are to meet with NATO officials in Brussels today as European leaders prepare to convene Thursday to solidify a plan.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Lee Myers, Ellen Barry, Alan Cowell, Steven Erlanger, David M. Herszenhorn of The New York Times; by Anthony Faiola of The Washington Post; and by Lara Jakes, Julie Pace, Tim Sullivan, Vladimir Isachenkov and staff members of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/05/2014