Russian servicemen confiscate weapons in Crimea region - Interfax
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Russian military servicemen have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine's Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula's "legitimate" leaders, Interfax news agency said on Sunday.
It quoted a Ukrainian Defense Ministry source as saying the Russian servicemen had taken pistols, rifles and ammunition cartridges from the radar post near in the town of Sudak and taken them away by car.
Another group of Russian military had also removed weapons from a Ukrainian navy training centre in the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet also has a base.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/02/us-urkaine-crisis-weapons-idUSBREA2103Z20140302
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Dmitry Medvedev has discussed the crisis in #Ukraine in a telephone conversation with Arseniy Yatsenyuk
https://twitter.com/GovernmentRF/status/440031122752143360
Yatsenyuk = Ukraine Prime Minister (takes me a while to memorize all these names)
steve2470
(37,457 posts)(original link: http://www.interfax-russia.ru/Center/main.asp?id=477503#.UxLVwUF27CM.twitter )
Authorities Belgorod region reported an attempt to close the road Moscow-Crimea
March 2. Interfax-Russia.ru - A group of unidentified armed men entered the border with Ukraine Russian regions, attempts to block roads leading to the Crimea, said Governor of the Belgorod region Yevgeny Savchenko.
"The area roam the crowd of armed men, who had taken out of nowhere, set various provocations" - said the head of the region in an interview to " Russia-24 "on Sunday.
According to him, on the eve of "was an attempt to block the road Moscow - Crimea." "All of us are very concerned about it," - said the governor.
*sorry for mangled translation*
Only posting to show what the Russian state media is reporting.
MADem
(135,425 posts)to see what they are claiming.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Let me give you the better version from Telegraph:
They also report that the Governor of Russia's Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine, says armed groups tried to cut off roads there leading in to Ukraine.
"Armed men are roaming the area ... There was an attempt to close off the road from Moscow to Crimea," Yevgeny Savchenko was quoted as saying about events. "This is really troubling."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10669670/Ukraine-live-Crimea-leader-appeals-to-Putin-to-help-as-Obama-warns-of-costs-to-Moscow.html
steve2470
(37,457 posts)SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Associated Press journalists on Ukraines Crimean Peninsula have seen a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops heading toward the regional capital, Simferopol.
Russian troops took over the strategic Black Sea peninsula on Saturday without firing a shot and the new government in Kiev has been powerless to react.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected calls from the West to pull back his forces, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.
On the road from Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia maintains a naval base, to Simferopol on Sunday morning, AP journalists saw 12 military trucks carrying troops, a Tiger vehicle armed with a machine gun and also two ambulances.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Not seeing anything about it in the rest of the media.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)11:20: BBC Russian Service correspondent Oleg Boldyrev at the Crimean base in Feodosiya says the deadline has passed for Ukrainian marines to swear their allegiance to the new Crimean authorities. The base gates are blocked by a chain of Cossacks; two armoured personnel carriers are visible beyond that.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26405082
steve2470
(37,457 posts)11:21: More from BBC Russian correspondent Oleg Boldyrev at the Ukrainian marine base in Feodosiya: "The atmosphere is calm but people are chanting. There are calls for the Ukrainain marines not to obey orders from Kiev... [It is] very calm at the moment, with locals coming to thank Russian soldiers."
steve2470
(37,457 posts)BBC TV reporting that Russian troops are digging trenches at the land border between Crimea and rest of Ukraine
https://twitter.com/jason_corcoran/status/440050135418941441
Corcoran is with Bloomberg News.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)We didn't think Putin would do this. Why, exactly? This has often puzzled me about Western analysis of Russia. It is often predicated on wholly Western logic: surely, Russia won't invade [Georgia, Ukraine, whoever's next] because war is costly and the Russian economy isn't doing well and surely Putin doesn't want another hit to an already weak ruble; because Russia doesn't need to conquer Crimea if Crimea is going to secede on its own; Russia will not want to risk the geopolitical isolation, and "what's really in it for Russia?"stop. Russia, or, more accurately, Putin, sees the world according to his own logic, and the logic goes like this: it is better to be feared than loved, it is better to be overly strong than to risk appearing weak, and Russia was, is, and will be an empire with an eternal appetite for expansion. And it will gather whatever spurious reasons it needs to insulate itself territorially from what it still perceives to be a large and growing NATO threat. Trying to harness Russia with our own logic just makes us miss Putin's next steps.
Pessimism always wins. One of the reasons I left my correspondent's post in Moscow was because Russia, despite all the foam on the water, is ultimately a very boring place. Unfortunately, all you really need to do to seem clairvoyant about the place is to be an utter pessimist. Will Vladimir Putin allow the ostensibly liberal Dmitry Medvedev to have a second term? Not a chance. There are protests in the streets of Moscow. Will Putin crackdown? Yup. There's rumbling in the Crimea, will Putin take advantage and take the Crimean peninsula? You betcha. And you know why being a pessimist is the best way to predict outcomes in Russia? Because Putin and those around him are, fundamentally, terminal pessimists. They truly believe that there is an American conspiracy afoot to topple Putin, that Russian liberals are traitors corrupted by and loyal to the West, they truly believe that, should free and fair elections be held in Russia, their countrymen would elect bloodthirsty fascists, rather than democratic liberals. To a large extent, Putin really believes that he is the one man standing between Russia and the yawning void. Putin's Kremlin is dark and scary, and, ultimately, very boring.
Remember the U.N.? Russia loves the U.N. Anytime the U.S. or Europe want to do anything on the world stage, Russia pipes up, demanding the issue be taken to the U.N. for the inevitable Russian veto. As Steven Lee Meyers, Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, pointed out, Russia does not seem to even remember that the institution exists today. Ditto for all that talk of "political solutions" and "diplomatic solutions" and "dialogue" we heard about in Syria. In other words, what we are seeing todayRussia's unilateral declaration of waris the clearest statement yet of Russia's actual position: Putin empathizes with Bashar al-Assad as a fellow leader holding his country back from the brink and doing the dirty work that needs to be done to accomplish that, and the U.N. is just a convenient mechanism for keeping nay-sayers with large armies at bay.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Outside a Ukrainian Navy installation in the suburbs of Simferopol, a man in his 20s sat on a low wall reading the local paper when a young woman approached and gave him a bag of apples.
Thank you for coming, she said. An ordinary enough scene, if he had not also been wearing Russian-issue green combat fatigues and cradling a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
The 810th marine infantry brigade of the Hero City of Sebastopol, said the soldier, putting down his copy of Krymskaya Pravda. Were here to help.
The seven men around him ? six with Kalashnikovs, one with a Dragunov sniper rifle ? shrugged in agreement. If their NCO was willing to talk, why should they deny it?
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)That worked out swimmingly.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Got to sleep. Probably won't even sleep... but oh well, I gotta turn this off.
It amazes me the extent people are going to defend Putin's actions. I only hope Crimean ethnic Ukrainians and Tartar's keep calm and hope for a gentle forced relocation in the event they no longer like the territory they will be living under.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)I hope the best for the Ukrainians and Tartars also. I really think Putin is reclaiming Crimea. I hope you're right about him staying out of eastern Ukraine.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)Last time Russia grabbed the province they massacred and exiled them. I'm sure they will get expelled.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Ah. Says a lot about nationalism: It's a city where a lot of Russians lost their lives defending Mother Russia against the fascist hordes. It's like saying "US Marines, ma'am, from San Antonio, home of the Alamo, here to defend you against the Mexicans." Esp. since the usual portrayal of Ukrainians, when not bumpkins, is as Hitler-defending Jew-killing anti-Russian fascists.
Pure jingoism. Which will be ignored by many here.
It's also a city that isn't under the autonomous part of Crimea, but land that's simply Ukrainian. So the new Crimean leader's authority doesn't, according to the published rules of the game so far, extend there.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)just felt justified about opposing registration of guns.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)There are so many bad things that could come out of this mess, and that's just one of them, unfortunately.
EX500rider
(10,839 posts)....thinking the eyes of the world and all the heat are on Russia tries to take some of the islands they want and they pick the wrong opponent. I expect the Philippines would do the smart thing and fold but I worry pressure from local nationalists might make Japan or South Korea fight back, US helps then its semi-WWIII...
Just deserts for Putin would be instead China striking for the mineral/oil rich Russian far East while the good mobile Russian forces are busy west....that one we could sit out I think.
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