Ukraine Refuses to Remove Its Own Troops from Russian-Occupied Crimea; Tells Troops to Prepare for War

I hope this is just bluster for domestic consumption. I don't want to see a lot of dead Ukrainians.

In the wake of a March 16 referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Ukrainian leaders refused to cede any part of the peninsula, calling on their troops to prepare for war.

“Crimea was, is, and will be our territory,” said Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh in a statement delivered at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on March 17.

Former heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko announced that Ukrainian troops would remain at their bases, even after March 21, the end of a peace treaty signed by the interior ministries of Ukraine and Russia.

In accordance with the March 16 peace treaty, the Russian Interior Ministry promised to allow Ukrainian soldiers to pass freely into and out of their bases, which Russian troops had surrounded for more than two weeks. Tenyukh said that the Russian military had thus far respected the terms of the treaty.

Russia has, not unexpectedly, immediately recognized the new free and totally legitimate state of Serious You Guys We're Independent Crimea.

The worry is that Putin doesn't just want Crimea, but is looking for a pretext to invade either the eastern half of Ukraine, or all of it.

If Obama expected this morning's sanctions to dissuade Putin from making more aggressive moves, Russia's Deputy PM splashed cold water on that.

U.S. official have warned of additional sanctions for Russian action, hoping it will deter Russia from any further aggression towards Ukraine, but it didn’t appear to upset the often outspoke Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

Rogozin, a friend of actor Steven Seagal, took to Twitter to tweak Obama, tweeting he thinks “some prankster” came up with the sanctions list.

In a later tweet addressed to “Comrade @BarackObama,” he asked, “what should do those who have neither accounts nor property abroad? Or U didn’t think about it?”

Over the weekend the completely free referendum on Crimea's autonomy was held, and the completely plausible results were 96.77% voting in favor of joining the Russian federation.

In other moves, Crimea will nationalize some of its energy companies and of course sell them to Russia. In exchange...

The deputy prime minister of Crimea says the region has set up a new central bank and is expecting to get $30 million in support from Russia. Rustam Temirgaliyev was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying Russia will send to Crimea 1 billion rubles "in the coming days" to help it stabilize its financial situation. Temirgaliyev said the new central bank will later function as a regional branch of the Russian central bank.

posted by Ace at 05:22 PM

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