UKRAINE: Ukrainian troops yesterday freed American sailors trapped by anti-Nato demonstrators in their accommodation in Crimea.
Protesters had surrounded a sanatorium where the 120 crew from a visiting navy ship were staying close to the Black Sea port of Feodosiya.
The sailors arrived on the US navy cargo ship Advantage on May 27th to bring equipment for a military exercise, Sea Breeze, scheduled for this summer.
But protesters say they should not have been allowed into the country because parliament, which has been unable to form a government since elections on March 26th, has not authorised the deployment.
Opposition lawmakers have threatened to impeach the president, Victor Yushchenko, for allowing the US servicemen into the country.
Opposition MP Natalya Vitrenko in Crimea accused the president of "high treason" for letting the sailors deploy.
It has been a tough week for the sailors. The night they disembarked, they were forced to evacuate a navy barracks after a bomb threat was phoned in.
No bomb was found, but last Friday their buses were stoned by crowds of anti-Nato protesters.
Then on Saturday fresh protests blocked a road, forced their buses to turn back from new accommodation, taking them instead to be housed in the sanatorium in the town of Alushta.
Both the Pentagon and Ukraine's navy insist the deployment is innocuous and will continue. The sailors are not armed, but are crewmen helping to unload stores.
Sea Breeze has been held each year since 1997, but the American arrival has come at a difficult time after weeks of bickering in parliament. Since the March elections the parties of the leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution, Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko, have been unable to agree on forming a government.
But these parties, who favour aligning with the West via Nato and the EU, have refused to form a government with the largest party, the Party of the Regions, which favours ties with Moscow.
With parliament, and the country, split over the future orientation of Ukraine, the arrival of a Nato ship has raised tensions.
Anti-Nato protesters fear it is part of a deepening involvement with the Western Alliance. Yuschenko's supporters say this is exactly what Ukraine needs.
Ukraine's security council has joined the president in blaming "foreigners", particularly Russians, for orchestrating the demonstrations, although no evidence has yet been offered.