02 March 2014

Head of Ukraine's navy 'defects' in Crimea


The BBC has an article about a defection:
The newly-appointed head of the Ukraine's Navy has sworn allegiance to the Crimea region, in the presence of its unrecognized pro-Russian leader.
Rear Admiral Denys Berezovsky (photo) was only made head of the Navy on Saturday, as the government in Kiev reacted to the threat of Russian invasion. The Ukraine's interim leaders have put him under investigation for treason.
Meanwhile, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has asked Russia to withdraw its forces to its bases. "We call on Russia to de-escalate tensions... to withdraw its forces to its bases and to refrain from any interference elsewhere in the Ukraine," he said, speaking in Brussels. The Ukraine was a "valued partner" for NATO and should be allowed to determine its own future, he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry is to visit Kiev on Tuesday, US sources say. He has warned that Russia might be ejected from the G8 for its actions, but his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, argued for Moscow's continuing membership. "The format of the G8 is actually the only one in which we in the West can speak directly with Russia," Steinmeier told the public broadcaster ARD.
President Barack Obama called Russian troop deployments in the Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a "violation of Ukrainian sovereignty".
Admiral Berezovsky appeared in Sevastopol before cameras alongside Sergiy Aksyonov, the pro-Russian politician elected by the Crimea's regional parliament as local prime minister. Aksyonov announced he had given orders to Ukrainian naval forces on the peninsula to disregard any orders from the "self-proclaimed" authorities in Kiev.
Sunday, he said, would go down in history as the birthday of the "navy of the autonomous republic of the Crimea".
The admiral then pledged to "strictly obey the orders of the supreme commander of the autonomous republic of the Crimea" and "defend the lives and freedom" of the Crimean people. Admiral Berezovsky was later sacked by interim Ukrainian Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh and a treason case launched against him.
The Ukraine's Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reports that the admiral was speaking before the "numerous cameras of predominantly Russian television channels".
Earlier, Ukrainian naval officers found their headquarters in Sevastopol occupied by Russian troops and were unable to go to work. Separately, the Ukraine withdrew coast guard vessels from two ports in the Crimea and moved them to other bases in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on Sunday.
Two explosions were heard in Simferopol, the capital of the Crimea, on Sunday evening, but the cause was not clear.
There are also unconfirmed reports, on social media, that Russian forces are trying to take over another Ukrainian military base, this time at Sevastopol's military airport, Belbek.
Several Ukrainian army bases were surrounded by Russian troops earlier, but there were no reports of clashes despite the refusal of Ukrainian soldiers to open their gates.
The Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilization in response to Russia's build-up of its forces on the Crimean peninsula. Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk warned the country was "on the brink of disaster".
The UK has joined the US, France, and Canada in suspending preparations for a summit of the G8 in Russia in June of 2014.
Rico says this is gonna get uglier...

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