Russia: Yanukovych requested for troops
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 4, 2014
Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych asked Russia to send troops to his country to restore peace and protect civilians, Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told a UN Security Council meeting on Monday.
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Ukrainian dismissed President Viktor Yanukovych |
"I would call on the president of Russia, Mr Putin, asking him to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine," Yahukovych was quoted in his letter written to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
Churkin offered a copy of Yanukovych's letter to the UN Security Council on Monday.
Yanukovych said his country is on the brink of civil war and civilians are persecuted simply for speaking Russian. An earlier report said Russia's Black Sea Fleet chief Aleksander Vitko threatened an assault on the Ukrainian forces if they did not surrender by 03:00 GMT on Tuesday.
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Russian Foreign Minsitry Monday refuted NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Council's allegations that Russia was conducting military escalation in Ukraine's Republic of Crimea.
Russia said its Black Sea Fleet based in Crimea are not interfering in Ukrainian internal political events.
"Providing security for fleet facilities and preventing possible attacks on our compatriots from extremists and radicals are the sole purposes of all troop movements," the ministry said, adding that NATO's statements are harmful for the block's relations with Russia.
Meanwhile, Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the State Duma, or the Lower House of Russia's Parliament, said there was no need to send Russian troops to Ukraine "so far".
"There is no such a necessity at the moment," Naryshkin told the Russia 24 TV channel.
He added that an opportunity to settle the situation in Ukraine via a political dialogue still exists.
"I and my colleagues do not even want to say the word 'war,'" Naryshkin said.
Ukraine's UN ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, accused Russia of "an act of aggression," telling the Security Council that Russia has deployed some 16,000 troops from Russian territory to Crimea since Feb. 24.
The U.S. Defense Department on Monday evening said that it is suspending all military-to-military engagements with Russia and the suspension covers bilateral meetings, port visits and planning conferences.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative was quoted by media as saying that the United States has also put trade and investment talks with Russia on hold over the Ukraine crisis.
The moves came after U.S. President Barack Obama threatened to take a series of economic and diplomatic to isolate Russia if it refuses to withdraw military forces from Crimea.
The European Union(EU) also mulled "targeted measures" against Russia, said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Monday following an extraordinary EU foreign ministers' meeting.
Seven members of the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), as well as the European Council and the European Commission Monday declared suspension of their preparations for the Sochi summit due in June in a joint statement to protest against Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
Crimea, a multiethnic region in southeastern Ukraine with a large Russian population, enjoys a high degree of autonomy after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has maintained its only Black Sea naval base there in the port of Sevastopol.
Crimea became the new epicenter of an ongoing tension in the East European country last week, when some 50 armed men seized government and parliament buildings in Crimea and took control of the two airports one day after gunmen seized the local parliament and government buildings. Russian flags were raised over the seized buildings.
Tensions flared up in the peninsula heavily populated by ethnic Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians, following the dismissal of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22.
Russian Parliament on Saturday authorized President Vladimir Putin to use military force to protect Russia's interests in Ukraine.
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