Posted on 03/01/2014 6:45:23 PM PST by Jim Robinson
The unofficial pro-Moscow leader of Ukraine's autonomous Crimea region has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for help to ensure peace.
A Kremlin source said it would "not leave unnoticed" the request from Sergiy Aksyonov.
Reports speak of a clash overnight in Crimea's capital and an attempt to seize a Ukrainian missile base.
Ukraine's interim Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, accused Russia of seeking to provoke an escalation.
He was speaking at the first meeting of his cabinet, installed after the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. New Defence Minister Ihor Tenyukh accused Russia of "recently" deploying 6,000 extra soldiers to Ukraine.
US President Barack Obama warned Moscow against any military intervention as unidentified soldiers, thought to be Russian, fanned out in the south of the peninsula, surrounding airports and communications centres.
According to Mr Aksyonov, soldiers from Russia's Black Sea Fleet based in Crimea are helping to guard strategic buildings. But the fleet's press service only told a Russian news agency Ria-Novosti it would help guard fleet installations.
Under the agreement governing the presence of the fleet in Crimea, the Russians must co-ordinate all troop movements outside the fleet's base areas with the Ukrainian authorities beforehand.
The head of Russia's upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, said she could not rule out the dispatch of a "limited contingent" of troops to Crimea to "guarantee the security of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian citizens living on the territory of Crimea".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Right on cue, just the way he and Putin rehearsed it.
Germans “under attack” in Czech Sudetenland?
mein gott!
Wo De Tian! (Mien Gott in Chinese, the 2nd language I know)
sounds like a good name for a rock ban
Wo De Tian Clan
Everybody was Szechuan Hwaiting! Those chopsticks were fast as lightening.
Russia has been known as the “Prison of Nations” since Tsarist times. You don’t think many of those ethnic groups within Russia don’t long for a nation of their own or unification with an existing national state? They’re just good at imperialism.
And Ukraine call up their military reserves
1. Autonomous republic within Ukraine
2. Transferred from Russia in 1954
3. Ethnic Russians - 58.5%
4. Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%
5. Crimean Tatars - 12.1%
Source: Ukraine census 2001
So, what would be wrong with returning Crimea to Russia and letting the rest of Ukraine remain independent?
A Ukrainian might argue, reasonably, what would be wrong with returning California to Mexico and allowing the other 49 states to remain in the USA?
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