Ukraine’s president calls for deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops
Pro-Russian militants in Ukraine defy government threats
(about 5 hours later)
MOSCOW — With pro-Russian militants attacking more buildings in eastern Ukraine Monday and ignoring a government deadline to disperse, Ukraine’s acting president said he would welcome United Nations peacekeepers to help establish order by conducting a “joint counterterrorist operation” with Ukrainian forces.
DONETSK, Ukraine — Defiant pro-Russian militants here in eastern Ukraine pushed this country to the brink of war or dissolution Monday, expanding their hold while the acting president failed to make headway in trying to end the crisis.
A statement posted on his official Web site said President Oleksandr Turchynov raised the matter in a telephone call with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, accusing Russia of sending “special units” to eastern Ukraine to “conduct armed seizure of the administrative buildings and threaten lives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens.” He said Russia was repeating the scenario of its takeover of Crimea least month, but he noted that the situation in eastern Ukraine is different “because the majority of people do not want to support separatists.”
After an ultimatum to the militants was ignored, the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, first vowed to rout them by force, then held out the offer of a referendum to decide Ukraine’s fate, then proposed a peacekeeping intervention by the United Nations.
Vowing to “fight back [against] terrorism and Russian aggression,” Turchynov raised the prospect of conducting a “joint operation with the U.N. peacekeeping forces” so that the world could “witness the legality” of Ukrainian forces’ actions.
Nothing Turchynov said moved the pro-Russian forces, who seized another police station in another small town, Horlivka.
“We do not object and even welcome holding of joint counterterrorist operation in the East,” Turchynov said, according to the statement. It said Ban pledged to “do everything I can for the situation to be resolved peacefully as soon as possible.”
In a nation of 44 million, it became clear that a few hundred men, operating on the eastern fringes of the country with guns and unmarked uniforms, have brought Ukraine to a deeply dangerous juncture.
Given that any such move by the United Nations would require Russian approval in the Security Council, where Moscow holds a veto, the idea of sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine would seem to be a non-starter.
The mood was tense in this industrial city of nearly 1 million, where many residents were staying inside after dark. Pro-Russian activists took over the regional administrative offices last week, and bands of masked men, including several carrying steel pipes, were patrolling the barricaded entrances to the monolithic structure in the center of town. Turchynov and other Ukrainian officials are sure that Russia is guiding the militants as they have steadily taken over one government building after another. They have
Turchynov’s appeal came amid mounting accusations, not only in Kiev but in Washington and London, that Russia has instigated and coordinated a spate of armed building takeovers by men in unmarked uniforms that began Saturday. Reuters news agency reported Monday that separatists in the city of Slavyansk have appealed openly to Russia for help on behalf of the “Donetsk People’s Republic.”
vocal support on that score from Washington and London. Russia adamantly denies it, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Monday it is the West’s responsibility to rein in the government in Kiev so that there are no violent attacks on the militants.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is viewing developments in Ukraine “with great concern,” his press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, told reporters Monday.
The crisis, which began to the south, in Crimea, is now focused on militants who say they represent the “People’s Republic of Donetsk.” It has brought relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point at least since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
“Many appeals — addressed personally to Putin, asking to help in this or that way and asking to intervene in this or that way — have been received,” Peskov said.
"There can't really be any real doubt that this is something that has been planned and brought about by Russia," the British foreign secretary, William Hague, said as he arrived in Luxembourg to meet with his European counterparts.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied Monday that Russia has any agents in eastern Ukraine, and he said it is the West’s responsibility to restrain the government in Kiev.
In Moscow, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Russian president has been watching the crisis with “great concern’’ and had received “many appeals, addressed personally to Putin, asking to help in this or that way and asking to intervene in this or that way.’’
“We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine; it is contrary to our interests,” Lavrov said at a news conference.
Officials at the Pentagon on Monday protested what they described as a provocative flyover by a Russian attack aircraft that flew at close range for 90 minutes over a U.S. Navy ship that had been sent into the Black Sea.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague scoffed at such claims. “I don’t think denials of Russian involvement have a shred of credibility,” he said Monday as he arrived in Luxembourg for a European foreign ministers’ meeting.
The anonymous appeal for help has been a favorite tactic of Russian interventionists for the better part of a century. It was rolled out before the invasion of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968, two operations in which one of Putin’s heroes, Yuri Andropov, a KGB official who later became Soviet leader, played a key role.
“There can’t really be any real doubt that this is something that has been planned and brought about by Russia,” Hague said. “The forces involved are well armed, well trained, well equipped, well coordinated, behaving in exactly the same way as what turned out to be Russian forces behaving in Crimea.”
It was also a feature of Russia’s involvement in Crimea in late February and March before that region’s annexation by Moscow.
The U.S. Defense Department, meanwhile, protested what it described as harassment of a U.S. Navy ship by a Russian attack aircraft Saturday in the Black Sea.
In eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian news agencies reported Monday evening that opponents of the separatists had set up checkpoints on highways leading from the Donetsk region to the Kharkiv region, and — with the help of traffic police — were inspecting cars with the aim of preventing separatists from traveling to Kharkiv.
A military official who was not authorized to speak on the record said Monday that the Russian aircraft, an apparently unarmed Sukhoi Su-25, made “multiple close-range, low-altitude passes” near the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer, for 90 minutes while the ship was conducting unspecified “routine operations” in international waters.
But as the evening wore on there was still no sign of Turchynov’s promised attack on separatist positions by forces loyal to Kiev. Turchynov and other officials had said that if no resolution was reached by 8 a.m. Monday, an “anti-terrorist” operation would begin.
Using communication systems accessible to Russian military personnel, the crew aboard the American ship issued several queries and warnings to the aircraft but received no answer, the official said.
In the heart of Donetsk, a group of pro-Russians occupying the city's Lenin Square said they were convinced that the Kiev government would not carry out its threat to deploy the Ukrainian army in the region. Unlike some activists, they said they did not want the Russian military to roll into the region. They were holding out for a referendum on the region's future.
“This was a provocative action,” the official said. “It is inconsistent with international protocols and what you would expect from a professional military.”
"We are not afraid," said Oles Kulik, a retired coal miner occupying a tent in the square and where banners declaring the People’s Republic were plastered on lampposts. “Kiev needs to hear our voice and understand that we are now something different from them.”
Turchynov has vowed that Ukrainian forces will move to evict the militants occupying buildings in eastern Ukraine now that a Monday morning deadline has passed. Lavrov warned that the use of armed force by the government would have serious consequences.
Elsewhere in the region, the several hundred pro-Russian militants have established themselves in towns on strategic crossroads, but wouldn’t be able to withstand an armored assault — unless such an attack draws assistance from Russian military forces right across the border, which is exactly what Kiev and its friends abroad fear.
Turchynov also said Monday that he would be open to a referendum next month on a decentralization of authority to Ukraine’s regions. But Lavrov said that would be unacceptable if negotiators from eastern Ukraine are not given a role in formulating the question or questions to be put to a vote.
This being Ukraine, though, some people — including Oleksandr Yaroshenko, a veteran political strategist in Donetsk — worry that Turchynov and his ally, the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, are gaming the crisis for personal benefit and may not intend to resist Russia to the fullest.
With sporadic gunfights having left at least nine injured and one dead, the prospects for a negotiated settlement have dimmed considerably.
One factor at play is the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for May 25 but looking increasingly unlikely. On Monday, Turchynov unexpectedly held out the offer of a referendum to determine the amount of power-sharing between Kiev and the regions, to be held the same day. The separatists have been saying that a referendum is their principal goal, but many were quick to dismiss Turchynov’s proposal as insincere — as was the Russian foreign ministry.
In the city of Horlivka, about 150 separatists stormed and seized the local police headquarters. In Luhansk, close to the Russian border, workers were evacuated from the local administration building Monday morning, the Interfax news agency reported, without being told why.
Turchynov also talked with U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and later suggested that a U.N. peacekeeping force could enter eastern Ukraine. But the almost-certain opposition of Moscow, standing up for the men with guns, makes that problematic.
“The blood of Ukrainian heroes has been shed in a war which the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine,” Turchynov said in an address to the nation Sunday evening. “The aggressor has not stopped and is continuing to sow disorder in the east of the country.”
Those loyal to Kiev in Donetsk appeared to be running out of patience.
The armed assaults on government buildings in the eastern Donetsk region, close to the Russian border, have alarmed Ukrainian leaders and their Western backers. The attacks, officials said, were reminiscent of the shadowy invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, which resulted in its annexation by Russia last month.
“From the government’s actions so far, we are reading that the pro-Ukrainian citizens of Donetsk are being left behind,” said Diana, a 34-year-old graphic designer who would not give her last name out of fear for her safety. “The situation here is critical, and what we need from Kiev is action.”
The West has been cautioning Ukraine against starting a shooting war with the separatists for fear that it would offer Russia, which has thousands of troops gathered across the border, a pretext for invasion. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, however, that he had no alternative but to begin an “anti-terrorist” campaign Sunday after days of urging the separatists to go home peacefully.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry and European leaders are promising more sanctions, on top of those imposed on Russia over its role in Crimea. The State Department circulated a document assailing what it called “Russian Fiction: The Sequel. Ten More False Claims about Ukraine.”
At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday night, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin warned of “extremely significant consequences” if Ukraine’s government follows through with orders to use military force.
In seeking to contradict assertions from Moscow, the American document says, among other things, that Russian agents are active in eastern Ukraine; that separatists there do not enjoy broad popular support; that Russian-speakers are not under threat; and the new government in Kiev is not led by right-wing nationalists and fascists.
“In just a few hours’ time, things might take an irreversible turn for the worse,” he said. He also indicated that Russia had agreed only “in principle” to attend a meeting on the crisis scheduled to take place Thursday among Secretary of State John F. Kerry and counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and the European Union.
“I don’t think denials of Russian involvement have a shred of credibility,” British official Hague said Monday.
“What do you think?” Churkin said. “Tomorrow, there’s going to be the use of armed force and hostilities . . . and we’re going to sign off on that meeting? That is going to be fundamentally undermined if military operations are commenced in the southeastern region of Ukraine.”
Englund reported from Moscow and Karla Adam contributed reporting from London.
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, responded sharply, saying, “It is not the United States that has escalated this situation. It is the Russian Federation.”
“While we would like to place our faith in talks,” she added, “it is hard to reconcile the behavior of the Russian Federation, the propaganda of the Russian Federation, the military actions of the Russian Federation . . . it is hard to reconcile those acts with this appeal for diplomacy and de-escalation, an appeal which we wish were, in fact, sincere.”
Although Russia appeared to wish that the “Internet did not exist,” Power said, the world could see videos clearly indicating that what Churkin called “demonstrations and protests” were, in fact, organized actions by well-armed and organized paramilitary forces. She repeated international calls for Russia to pull back its tens of thousands of troops massed on the Ukrainian border.
The meeting was the 10th emergency council session on the Ukraine crisis, this time called by Russia. As it began, Churkin condemned “grotesque Russia-phobia” on the part of elements of the Kiev government for provoking a response from Russian-speaking minorities in eastern Ukraine.
Power, along with representatives from Britain and France, ridiculed Churkin’s description of the situation, and they criticized what they called intensive Russian propaganda and media control designed to isolate and control the population of eastern Ukraine.
But while Russia stood alone in its version of events on the ground, the council offered no solution other than to call for calm and dialogue.
Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Power said the separatist action in eastern Ukraine “has all the telltale signs of what we saw in Crimea” leading up to Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. “It’s professional. It’s coordinated. There’s nothing grass-roots-seeming about it,” she said.
If the attacks continue, she warned, the United States would intensify its sanctions against Russia. As for the Kiev government, it lost Crimea without firing a shot and has vowed not to repeat that scenario in eastern Ukraine.
In Washington, President Obama’s national security team discussed whether to move forward with additional sanctions. Although the administration has frozen assets and banned visas of individual Russians said to be “cronies” of the Russian president, Obama indicated that more serious measures would be implemented if Russian troops entered eastern Ukraine, including sanctions against economic sectors such as energy and mining.
The question now facing the administration is how to respond to alleged Russian destabilization that falls short of outright invasion.
Turchynov gave the separatists a deadline of 9 a.m. local time Monday to vacate the buildings and leave under an amnesty. Last week, they were given a deadline of Friday to do the same. The offer was ignored.
Last Monday, separatists overran the Donetsk regional administration building and have held it ever since. On Saturday, they took the Donetsk regional police headquarters, while men in camouflage overwhelmed the police department in Slavyansk, a town 55 miles from the city of Donetsk. By Sunday, they had stormed other towns in the region.
William Branigin, Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño in Washington and Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
