Ukraine’s acting president has urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop “provocations” in Crimea and pull back military forces from the peninsula.
Oleksandr Turchynov, who stepped in as president after Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev last weekend, said that the Ukrainian military will fulfil its duty but will not be drawn into provocations.
Heavily armed men in military uniform arrived at strategic facilities in Crimea, prompting Ukraine to accuse Russia of “military invasion and occupation” – a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis.
Russia kept silent on claims of military intervention, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, a territory that has played a symbolic role in its national identity.
Earlier, Ukraine’s fugitive president resurfaced in Russia to deliver a defiant condemnation of what he called a “bandit coup” in Kiev.
Yanukovych struck a tone both of bluster and caution – vowing to “keep fighting for the future of Ukraine,” while ruling out seeking Russian military help.
“Any military action in this situation is unacceptable,” he told reporters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don near the border with Ukraine.
In his closing remarks, seeking to make a firm point, Yanukovych tried – and failed – to break a pen.
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 south-eastern peninsula of Ukraine that has semi-autonomous status, was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, and was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.
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.
“I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation,” Ukraine’s newly-named interior minister, Arsen Avakov said.
The chief of Ukraine’s security council, Andriy Parubiy, seemed to strike a less strident tone later in the day, saying gunmen had tried to “seize” the airports in the Crimean cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol, but insisting that “de-facto the airports are controlled by the law enforcement bodies of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service also said about 30 Russian marines from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, had taken up position outside the Ukrainian coastguard base in the area.
It said the marines said they were there to prevent any weapons being seized by extremists.
Yanukovych said he supports Crimea’s residents who are worried about “nationalists” in Kiev and added that Russia cannot stand by while events in Ukraine unfold. He denied that this amounts to a call for military intervention.
The prosecutor-general’s office in Kiev said it would seek his extradition to Ukraine, where he is wanted on suspicion of mass murder in last week’s violent clashes between protesters and police, during which more than 80 people were killed.
Journalists approaching the Sevastopol airport found the road leading up to it blocked by two military trucks and a handful of gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles.
A car with Russian military plates was stopped at the roadblock. A man wearing a military uniform with a Russian flag on his sleeve got out of the car and was allowed to enter on foot after a brief discussion with the gunmen.
At the airport serving Simferopol, commercial flights were landing and taking off despite armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolling with assault rifles.
They didn’t stop or search people leaving or entering the airport. 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-defence unit ensuring no “radicals and fascists” arrive from other parts of Ukraine.
The airport deployments came 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 today. Russia’s state RIA Novosti and Interfax agencies cited an unnamed official from the Russian Black Sea Fleet denying involvement, saying Russian servicemen stationed in Crimea have not moved into the airports and denying that the Russian military was in control there.
A UN spokesman said any action by the Security Council is unlikely because Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member and can block any action.