Ukraine crisis: ‘This is our motherland. We have something to defend’

Ukraine’s leaders have vowed to repel Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, as Moscow’s troops continued to besiege military bases across the Black Sea peninsula.

Officials in Kiev say Russia is massing more soldiers and military hardware close to its border with Ukraine, and warned of possible staged deadly attacks on Russian servicemen in Crimea to justify a full-scale invasion.

Tension in Ukraine – which was already crackling after an ultimately bloody revolution to oust former president Viktor Yanukovich – spiralled last night with claims from defence officials that Russia had told Ukrainian troops in Crimea to surrender by this morning or face attack.

A representative of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based at Sevastopol on the Crimean coast, denied such an ultimatum had been issued. “It’s total nonsense,” the unnamed naval officer told Russia’s Interfax news agency. “We are already used to daily accusations about some kind of armed action being taken against our Ukrainian colleagues.”

Ukrainian servicemen were last night trapped inside several bases around Crimea, however, having refused demands to lay down their weapons from Russian troops and pro-Kremlin militia who effectively control the mostly ethnic-Russian peninsula. Locals gathered outside several such bases, with some bringing food and drinks to the Russians or to the besieged Ukrainians, depending on their allegiance.

Protecting Russians
Not a shot has been fired during Russia's seizure of Crimea, which the Kremlin calls an operation to protect Russian-speakers and citizens from attack by roaming ultra-nationalist gangs linked to the new pro-western Kiev authorities.

Moscow has produced no evidence of the existence of such groups, but many ethnic-Russians in Crimea have welcomed the troops and want to be protected by or even join Russia.

"No one will give away Crimea to anyone," insisted Ukraine's prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "There are no grounds, and will be no grounds, for Russia using violence against Ukrainians and peaceful citizens, or for sending in the Russian military."

The government in Kiev, trying to stave off national bankruptcy, accuses the Kremlin of a land-grab that could extend into largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where support for the revolution is weaker and ties with Moscow stronger than central and western regions.

Though Ukraine’s military is massively outnumbered and outgunned by Russia’s, Kiev pledged yesterday that – with foreign support – it would resist an incursion it claims is intended to destabilise Ukraine and prevent it moving out of Moscow’s orbit .

“I am sure the plan worked out by the Russian Federation has already failed, and I am sure we can maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our state,” said Andriy Parubiy, who led the revolution’s volunteer self-defence groups and is now chief of Ukraine’s national security council. “The whole world is today on Ukraine’s side and [Vladimir] Putin, who planned such a brilliant victory over Ukraine, is in fact in total international isolation.”

Heavy armour
Ukraine border guards said yesterday that Russian vessels were at sea near Sevastopol, and troops and heavy armour were being amassed at a ferry port on the Russian side of the narrow Kerch straits, just across the water from Crimea.

Sergei Astakhov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s border service, said Russian troops had stormed several frontier posts “breaking down doors, knocking out windows, cutting off every communication”.

He claimed four Russian military ships, 13 helicopters and eight transport aircraft had arrived in Crimea in violation of agreements relating to Moscow’s lease on the Sevastopol base. Kiev’s defence ministry has said Russia deployed at least 6,000 additional troops in Crimea in recent days.

The soldiers now controlling Crimea are not wearing insignia on their uniforms, making it hard to differentiate between Russian military personnel and local armed militia. Ukrainian officials fear Russia is sowing maximum confusion in Crimea, and warned of plans to launch an attack on Russian serviceman to provide a pretext for an all-out invasion.

“We hope these people come to their senses,” deputy interior minister Nikolai Velikovich said of the unnamed alleged planners of such an attack. “Because if you do this you will provoke bloodshed, and there is none of that in Crimea.” Kiev has accused Russia of sending hundreds of men into Ukraine to stir up unrest in eastern regions and storm administrative buildings – possibly giving Moscow grounds to send a “protective” military force into those areas as well.

Ukraine's former president Leonid Kuchma, who hails from eastern Ukraine, urged people there to show loyalty to Kiev. "Ukraine is our motherland. We have no other," he said. "We have something to defend. God and the truth are on our side."