* Armed men seize buildings in Crimea, run up Russian flag
* Acting president warns Moscow against Crimea troop moves
* Russia fighters on alert, says it will defend compatriots’
rights
* Hryvnia falls to record low, IMF mission to visit Kiev
* Yanukovich said to hold news conference on Friday
By Alessandra Prentice and Alissa de Carbonnel
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Armed men seized the
parliament in Ukraine’s Crimea region on Thursday and raised the
Russian flag, alarming Kiev’s new rulers, who warned Moscow not
to move troops beyond the confines of its navy base on the
peninsula.
Crimea, the only Ukrainian region with an ethnic Russian
majority, is the last big bastion of opposition to the new
leadership in Kiev since President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted
at the weekend and provides a base for Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Its regional parliament, meeting in another part of the
building that was apparently still occupied by the gunmen, voted
to stage a referendum on “sovereignty” for Crimea.
“I am appealing to the military leadership of the Russian
Black Sea fleet,” said Oleksander Turchinov, Ukraine’s acting
president, who warned Russia not to move personnel beyond areas
permitted by treaty for those using its naval base.
“Any military movements, the more so if they are with
weapons, beyond the boundaries of this territory will be seen by
us as military aggression,” he said.
Russia has repeatedly declared it will defend the interests
of its citizens in Ukraine, and on Wednesday announced war games
near the border involving 150,000 troops on high alert.
Although Moscow says it will not intervene by force, its
rhetoric since the removal of its ally Yanukovich has echoed the
runup to its invasion of Georgia in 2008, when it sent its
troops to protect two self-declared independent regions and then
recognised them as independent states.
Ukraine’s leaders say they fear separatism in the Crimea.
In Washington, the White House warned Russia to avoid
“provocative” acts. “We strongly support Ukraine’s territorial
integrity and sovereignty. We expect other nations to do the
same,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and urged Moscow to work with the United
States and its European allies to help stabilise Ukraine.
“We believe that everybody now needs to take a step back and
avoid any kind of provocations,” Kerry said at a joint news
conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s acting
ambassador in Kiev for consultations.
The face-off between Moscow and the West has revived
memories of the Cold War. Ukraine has been in crisis since
November, when Yanukovich abandoned a proposed trade pact with
the EU and turned instead towards Russia. It escalated last week
when scores of demonstrators were killed, many by police
sharpshooters on rooftops, and Yanukovich was toppled.
The fresh turmoil in Crimea sent the Ukrainian hryvnia
tumbling to a new record low of 11 to the dollar on the
Reuters dealing platform. Ukraine’s new central bank
governor has abandoned a policy of propping up the currency
which was rapidly draining its foreign reserves.
Yanukovich’s overthrow will undoubtedly cost Kiev a $15
billion Russian bailout offered to Yanukovich as a prize by
Moscow for spurning the EU trade pact. Ukraine urgently needs
other sources of funding to stave off bankruptcy. The
International Monetary Fund said it would send a team to Kiev in
the coming days.
New finance minister Oleksander Shlapak said he hoped the
IMF would work on an aid package of at least $15 billion.
Ukraine says it needs $35 billion over the next two years.
The minister also said he expected the hryvnia to strengthen
soon at around 10 to the dollar.
GUNMEN
No one was hurt when government buildings were seized in
Crimea’s regional capital Simferopol in the early hours by
Russian-speaking gunmen in uniforms without insignia.
“We were building barricades in the night to protect
parliament. Then this young Russian guy came up with a pistol
… we all lay down, some more ran up, there was some shooting
and around 50 went in through the window,” Leonid Khazanov, an
ethnic Russian, told Reuters.
“I asked them what they wanted, and they said ‘To make our
own decisions, not to have Kiev telling us what to do’.”
Acting interior minister Arsen Avakov said the attackers had
automatic weapons and machine guns.
The regional prime minister said he had spoken to the people
inside the building by telephone, but they had not made any
demands or said why they were there. They had promised to call
him back but had not done so, he said.
With the occupation apparently still under way, the regional
parliament met in another part of the building and voted to hold
referendum on May 25, the day Ukraine plans to elect a new
president to replace Yanukovich. The referendum, if passed,
would declare Crimea sovereign, with its relationship to the
rest of Ukraine governed by treaty.
About 100 police gathered in front of the parliament, and a
similar number of people carrying Russian flags later marched up
to the building chanting “Russia, Russia” and holding a sign
calling for a referendum on Crimea’s status.
About 50 pro-Russia supporters from Sevastopol, where part
of Russia’s Black Sea navy is based, lined up
shoulder-to-shoulder facing police. Gennady Basov, their leader,
said: “We need to organise ourselves like this to maintain order
while this illegal and unconstitutional government operates in
Kiev.”
The crowd cheered at news that parliament had voted for the
referendum.
However, elsewhere there was some anger at the invasion of
the regional parliament and the flying of the Russian flag.
Alexander Vostruyev, 60, in a leather cap and white beard,
said: “It’s disgrace that the flag if a foreign country is
flying on our parliament … It’s like a man coming home to find
his wife in bed with another man.”
By nightfall, the Russian flag still flew over the building,
although crowd in front began to dwindle.
WESTERN CONCERN
The fear of military escalation prompted expressions of
concern from the West, with NATO urging Russia not to do
anything that would “escalate tension”, although the alliance
said neither it nor the United States had drawn up plans for how
they would respond if Russia did intervene militarily.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called the seizure
of government buildings in Crimea a “very dangerous game”.
Russia has a history of using its military power to protect
allies who declare self rule in parts of other ex-Soviet states,
notably in Georgia and also tiny Moldova. Members of Crimea’s
Russian majority have periodically agitated for independence at
times of tension between Kiev and Moscow.
Still, any move by Moscow to assist Crimeans in breaking
away from Ukraine – a nation of 46 million people on the
ramparts of central Europe – would be a more direct challenge to
the West than any Russian act since the Cold War.
Germany would do everything to support the new Ukrainian
government, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in London after talks
with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said Russia must
respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Ukraine’s new rulers pressed ahead with efforts to restore
stability to the divided country, approving formation of a
national coalition government with former economy minister
Arseny Yatseniuk as its proposed head.
Yatseniuk told parliament that Yanukovich had driven the
country to the brink of collapse. He accused the deposed
president of stripping state coffers bare and said $70 billion
had disappeared into offshore accounts.
“The state treasury has been robbed and is empty,” he said.
Yanukovich issued a statement on Thursday declaring he was
still president of Ukraine and warning its “illegitimate” rulers
that people in the southeastern and southern regions would never
accept mob rule.
Russian news agencies said he planned to hold a news
conference on Friday (1300 GMT) in the southern Russian city of
Rostov-on-Don.
