* Protest leaders name ministers for new government
* 150,000 troops in war games Moscow says unrelated to
Ukraine
* Washington warns Moscow against military intervention
By Alessandra Prentice and Richard Balmforth
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine/KIEV, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s
protest leaders named the ministers they want to form a new
government following the overthrow of President Viktor
Yanukovich, as an angry Russia put 150,000 troops on high alert
in a show of strength.
President Vladimir Putin’s order on Wednesday for soldiers
to be ready for war games near Ukraine was the Kremlin’s boldest
gesture yet after days of sabre rattling since its ally
Yanukovich was ousted at the weekend.
Moscow denied that the previously unannounced drill in its
western military district was linked to events in its neighbour
but it came amid a series of increasingly strident statements
about the fate of Russian citizens and interests.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Moscow that “any
kind of military intervention that would violate the sovereign
territorial integrity of Ukraine would be a huge – a grave
mistake”.
With the political turmoil hammering Ukraine’s economy, the
central bank said it would no longer intervene to shield the
hryvnia currency, which tumbled 4 percent on Wednesday and is
now down a fifth since January 1. Wednesday’s abrupt abandonment
of Ukraine’s currency peg sent ripples to Russia where the
rouble fell to five-year lows and bank shares fell.
In Kiev, leaders of the popular protests that toppled
Yanukovich on Wednesday named former economy minister Arseny
Yatseniuk as their choice to head a new interim government.
In a display of people power, the so-called ‘Euromaidan’
council made its announcement of Yatseniuk, and candidates for
other key ministries, after its members addressed crowds on
Independence Square, cradle of the insurgency.
UNPOPULAR DECISIONS
Oleksander Turchinov, now acting president, said the new
government would have to take unpopular decisions to head off
default and guarantee a normal life for Ukraine’s people.
The Euromaidan council’s proposals must be approved by
parliament, which meets on Thursday in an atmosphere heavy with
memories of recent bloodshed, whose hundred or so victims are
taking on the status of martyrs.
Yanukovich fled Kiev on Friday night after days of violence
in which scores of his countrymen were killed. the government
says it believes he is hiding in Crimea. It wants him tried at
the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
The council named career diplomat Andriy Deshchytsya as
foreign minister. Oleksander Shlapak, a former economy minister
and former deputy head of the central bank, was named as finance
minister.
“This is a government which is doomed to be able to work
only for 3-4 months … because they will have to take unpopular
decisions,” Turchinov said.
If the new ministers are approved, that would pave the way
for talks with the International Monetary Fund to stave off
financial meltdown now that Russia is expected to cut off a $15
billion lifeline it offered Yanukovich when he turned his back
on ties with the EU in November.
Kerry held out the possibility of providing $1 billion in
U.S. loan guarantees for Ukraine, as well as U.S. budget
support. He said Europe was also considering putting up roughly
$1.5 billion in assistance for Ukraine.
FINANCIAL NEEDS
Senior EU officials discussed a possible aid package for
Ukraine and said officials would travel there alongside experts
from the IMF to assess Kiev’s financial needs.
In Crimea, thousands of ethnic Russians, who form the
majority in the region, demonstrated for independence. They
scuffled with rival demonstrators supporting the new Kiev
authorities. Crimea is home to part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,
which Moscow said it was taking steps to secure.
Demonstrators poured into the regional capital Simferopol,
where the provincial parliament was debating the crisis.
Pro-Russian crowds, some cossacks in silk and lambswool
hats, shouted “Crimea is Russian!”.
Rival demonstrators backing the new authorities – mainly
ethnic Tatars repressed under Soviet rule – rallied under a pale
blue flag, shouting “Ukraine! Ukraine!”
Russia has repeatedly expressed concern for the safety of
Russian citizens in Ukraine, using language similar to
statements that preceded its invasion of Georgia in 2008.
“In accordance with an order from the president of the
Russian Federation, forces of the Western Military District were
put on alert at 1400 (1000 GMT) today,” Interfax news agency
quoted Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying.
Shoigu also said Russia was also “carefully watching what is
happening in Crimea” and taking “measures to guarantee the
safety of facilities, infrastructure and arsenals of the Black
Sea Fleet,” in remarks reported by state news agency RIA.
Since Yanukovich’s downfall, all eyes have been on Putin,
who ordered the invasion of neighbouring Georgia in 2008 to
protect two self-declared independent regions with many ethnic
Russians and others holding Russian passports, and then
recognised the regions as independent states.
Any military action in Ukraine, a country of 46 million
people that has close ties with European powers and the United
States, would be far more serious.
Despite the alarm raised by the sabre-rattling, many
analysts expect Putin will pull back before taking armed action.
The war games were probably for show, said Moscow-based
military analyst Alexander Golts: “Any rational analysis says
that Russia would get nothing out of military intervention – it
would become an international outcast.”
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Donetsk, Steve
Gutterman and Ian Bateson in Moscow, Adrian Croft in Brussels
and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels;
Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)
